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Investigative journalism in India is no longer about finding the truth. It’s about surviving the journey. An unending obstacle course of legal threats, editorial edits, advertiser anxieties, and a political circus where both the ruling party and the opposition perform backflips with equal absurdity.
It all begins with a story, usually something important, like embezzled public funds, environmental violations, or a minister who forgot that housing schemes are for the poor, not to park his prized BMWs. A journalist with a half-broken laptop and three maxed-out credit cards gets a whiff of something fishy; a stink that leads straight to power.
They spend weeks collecting documents, nudging babus into leaking files, and sweet-talking sources who speak in riddles and prefer being called “a senior official familiar with the matter”. The deeper they go, the murkier it gets. They’re on the verge of a real exposé.
But then comes the editorial review. The editor, equal parts weary and wary, adjusts his spectacles and asks, “Is this politician from the ruling party? Because if yes, I’d suggest we swap this out for something on yoga tourism instead.”
Our journalist insists. The truth, after all, doesn’t report itself. They push on. They get the story fact-checked, verified, signed, sealed, and ready to go. Enter: the legal team, also known as the Department of Truth Deferred. They read the report and ask, “Can you replace all names with pseudonyms and add ‘allegedly’ as every alternate word?”
Eventually, the story either dies a slow, bureaucratic death or gets published in a diluted form resembling a generic horoscope reading, where all Virgo natives will apparently be meeting someone influential on the exact same day. All of them, at once.
But say, by some miracle, it does get published. The ruling party’s response is textbook: accuse the journalist of being “anti-national,” “urban Naxal,” “foreign-funded,” or all three. Troll armies are deployed, their electricity bill from 2013 is leaked, and their grocery list is debated on prime-time panels as proof of moral decline.
But let’s not romanticise the opposition either. No, they’re not knightly saviours of democracy. They’re just angry they didn’t get there first. The moment an investigative piece surfaces, even if it’s about a minor clerical lapse or someone’s nephew attending a wedding during an official visit, the opposition erupts like it’s Independence 2.0. Press conferences are called. Hashtags are born. “Scam of the Century!” screams a leader whose party practically invented the word “scam”.
They weaponise journalism not to demand accountability, but to score political points. The same opposition that cries foul about media freedom conveniently forgets that, just a few years ago, they too were slapping sedition charges on everyone breathing on their turf.
It’s theatre. The ruling party buries stories with denial and distraction. The opposition inflates them with drama and distortion. Meanwhile, the journalist stands somewhere in the middle. Tired, and broke.
And media houses? They dance to the tune of whoever’s paying the bills, which is almost always someone with a political party in one pocket and a real estate license in the other. News becomes a buffet: a little truth, a lot of spice, zero nutrition.
Long-form, in-depth reporting is often outsourced to freelancers who get paid in exposure, ahem! Or relegated to niche websites with readerships the size of a WhatsApp group. Meanwhile, the big channels run sting operations showing someone accepting bribes of ₹500, while ignoring billion-rupee scandals because the scammer once liked the anchor’s tweet.
The business model is broken. And yet, there are journalists who keep going. Despite threats, censorship, and a complete lack of institutional support. Because once in a while, a story slips through the cracks. A scam gets noticed. A resignation happens. A citizen wakes up. It’s rare. But it’s enough to keep going.
But let’s not kid ourselves — investigative journalism in India is rarely about results. It’s about the efforts. It’s about the process. It’s about bleeding for a story that will likely never see the light of day, or if it does, will be seen through the prism of “agenda,” “bias,” or worse, “anti-nationalism.”
But the journey? It’s defiant. It’s necessary. It’s about screaming into the void and sometimes hearing an echo.
So the next time you see an exposé, remember: it’s not just news. It’s blood, sweat, sleepless nights, unpaid bills, life threats, sedition charges, and possibly a lot of slapped sections of anti-nationalism. In India, truth is a dangerous luxury, and those who chase it, do so on a road where both the ruling party and the opposition are happy to throw nails under your tyres.
And yet, someone always rides on.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.