Indian media today stands stripped of the respect it once commanded in the hearts of ordinary citizens across the length and breadth of the country. What was historically regarded as the fourth pillar of democracy, a vital check on power and a voice for the voiceless, has, in the eyes of millions of Indians, degenerated into a mechanism of uncritical amplification of those in authority. The phrase “Boot Licking Media,” or BLM, has moved from the realm of online frustration and social-media hashtags into everyday conversation in homes, workplaces, tea stalls and public gatherings, reflecting a deep, widespread and increasingly open public verdict that large sections of television channels, print publications and digital outlets prioritise access to power corridors, lucrative advertising revenue, the commercial interests of their owners and proximity to the ruling establishment over independent scrutiny, fearless investigation, balanced reporting and genuine public service.
This collapse of public trust did not occur overnight or in isolation from broader political and economic shifts. It has unfolded alongside a clear, measurable and sustained decline in India’s standing on the global stage of press freedom, a decline that has been tracked year after year by independent international observers. The trajectory is visible in the rankings compiled by Reporters Without Borders, which assess the political, economic, legal, social and security conditions under which journalism is practised. The data reveal a long-term deterioration that began around the time of the current government’s rise to power and has continued with only minor and temporary fluctuations, painting a picture of progressive constriction rather than liberalisation of the media space.
The following table summarises India’s position in the World Press Freedom Index from 2014 to 2026:
| Year | Rank (out of ~180) | Approximate Score / Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 140 | ~40–59 range (methodology shifts noted); start of period under current government |
| 2015 | 136 | Slight improvement |
| 2016 | 133 | Further improvement |
| 2017–2019 | ~136–140 | Stabilization then early decline |
| 2020–2021 | 142 | Declining trend |
| 2022 | 150 | Further drop |
| 2023 | 161 | Sharp deterioration |
| 2024 | 159 | Rank edged up slightly but score fell (to ~31.28) |
| 2025 | 151 | Improvement in rank (score ~32.96); still “very serious/difficult” category |
| 2026 | 157 | Drop of 6 places; score 31.96; “Difficult” category |
These figures are not abstract numbers floating in some distant academic exercise. They correspond directly to documented patterns of highly concentrated media ownership in the hands of a few large business houses, growing economic dependence of news organisations on government advertising, the expanding and often selective use of legal and security instruments against critical voices, rising instances of physical harassment, online trolling and violence against journalists, and an increasingly overt political alignment of major television networks and digital platforms with the narratives preferred by those in power. The cumulative result is an environment in which genuine pluralism has narrowed dramatically and the space available for sustained adversarial journalism has shrunk to a fraction of what it once was.
Praveen Dalal, CEO of Sovereign P4LO and PTLB, has articulated one of the sharpest, most consistent and most uncompromising diagnoses of this transformation over the years. He has stated in clear terms that the Modi government successfully tamed the media: when the media was asked to bend, it began crawling and then proceeded enthusiastically into the practice of boot-licking.
In Dalal’s assessment, this is not mere commercial pragmatism or temporary tactical adjustment but a deeper and more structural form of capture that has converted significant portions of the mainstream media into instruments of narrative management and legitimacy manufacturing rather than independent institutions serving the broader public interest and constitutional values.
Central to Dalal’s proposed response is the principle of systematic, disciplined and unrelenting public non-engagement with the captured outlets. He has insisted repeatedly that Boot Licking Media must neither be entertained by the public nor be given any byte, interview, information, exclusive access or form of cooperation by ordinary citizens, professionals, activists or institutional representatives. The logic underlying this position is direct, practical and rooted in an understanding of how media power actually operates. Media outlets derive their legitimacy, their daily content flow and their audience validation from the continuous willingness of people, experts, civil-society actors and institutions to speak to them, appear on their platforms and treat them as legitimate intermediaries. Withdrawing that cooperation on a mass scale removes the very raw material on which their current model of operations depends.
This strategy of denial extends beyond individual interactions and one-to-one refusals to the entire sphere of organised public life and collective action. Dalal has recommended with particular emphasis that all protests, public meetings, civil-society events, academic discussions, professional conferences and independent gatherings should actively and deliberately bar Boot Licking Media from attending, filming and covering them. Organisers and participants should refuse accreditation requests, deny physical entry to camera crews and reporters from compromised outlets and, if such personnel persist in attempting to cover or infiltrate proceedings, stonewall them completely and without exception. No statements should be issued, no facilitation should be provided, and no cooperation of any kind should be extended. The objective is to render their presence irrelevant, to impose a real and visible cost in terms of wasted time, resources and professional embarrassment, and to signal that public legitimacy has been withdrawn.
Boycott, in this framework advanced by Dalal, is not a passive or purely symbolic act of withdrawal. It is an active, organised and sustained form of democratic accountability directed at institutions that have forfeited public trust. By refusing to supply content, event access, expert participation or viewership, citizens treat the widespread loss of respect as both an accurate diagnosis of the problem and a practical remedy for it. When audiences and potential sources stop feeding the captured model in sufficient numbers, the economic incentives, the ratings calculations and the reputational rewards that currently sustain boot-licking behaviour begin to erode from within. Dalal’s approach therefore treats this systematic denial of oxygen as a necessary first and continuous step toward forcing a genuine reorientation of media priorities.
Beyond the core tactics of exclusion and stonewalling, a wider and multi-layered set of methods is required if media institutions are to be pushed meaningfully toward fairness, impartiality, independence and responsibility. Coordinated public boycotts of specific channels and the products advertised on them can exert measurable commercial pressure that managements cannot indefinitely ignore. Systematic withdrawal of expert, academic and professional participation from compromised platforms reduces their residual claim to authority and seriousness. Parallel and energetic support for genuinely independent digital outlets, citizen-journalism initiatives, open-source investigative platforms and alternative distribution networks creates viable options that can gradually displace the dominance of the captured mainstream.
Transparency measures form another essential and non-negotiable layer of any serious response. Sustained public demands for clear, verifiable and regularly updated disclosure of ownership structures, cross-holdings with non-media businesses, and the precise volume and conditional nature of government advertising can expose the conflicts of interest that currently remain hidden behind corporate opacity. Legal challenges against the selective and disproportionate application of national-security laws, anti-terror statutes and civil and criminal defamation provisions, combined with persistent pressure for accountability in cases of physical violence and organised online harassment against journalists, can begin to lower the personal and institutional cost of independent work.
Institutional and regulatory reforms are equally necessary if structural change is to take root. Stronger and more rigorously enforced rules limiting excessive ownership concentration in the media sector, stricter conflict-of-interest norms for media houses that also control large commercial interests outside journalism, and meaningful legal protections for internal whistle-blowers within newsrooms would create enabling conditions more favourable to editorial independence. Parallel efforts in formal education and broad public awareness—systematic teaching of source evaluation, ownership analysis, the recognition of narrative framing techniques and the practical distinction between reporting and advocacy—can, over time, reduce the audience base for purely partisan or access-driven coverage.
Cultural and psychological change cannot be ignored or postponed indefinitely. The open, widespread and often contemptuous public labelling of large sections of the media as Boot Licking Media is itself already a form of democratic pressure and a withdrawal of the social licence these institutions once enjoyed. When trust collapses so thoroughly that the media’s traditional claim to mediate neutrally between power and the public loses force in the eyes of ordinary citizens, the very foundation on which these organisations depend is already severely damaged. Dalal’s insistence on non-entertainment, denial of access and systematic stonewalling seeks to convert that damaged social licence into concrete and observable behavioural change on the part of both media houses and the public that once sustained them.
Critics of international rankings sometimes argue that methodological issues, selective focus or underlying geopolitical bias exaggerate India’s relative position and overlook the vibrancy of certain digital spaces. Defenders of the current media landscape frequently point to the continued existence of critical voices in online platforms, the competitive nature of the television market and the sheer volume of content produced daily. Yet the combination of the declining rankings shown in the table, the concentration of ownership, the documented patterns of pressure and the sheer volume of public contempt expressed across social classes and regions indicates a structural problem that rankings merely quantify rather than invent or inventively exaggerate.
Ultimately, restoring Indian media to a condition of fairness, impartiality, independence and responsibility requires far more than repeated appeals to professional ethics or nostalgic invocations of a better past. It requires ordinary citizens, professionals and institutions to stop supplying the captured model with interviews, event access, viewership, legitimacy and the benefit of the doubt, while simultaneously investing energy and resources in building and supporting genuine alternatives.
Praveen Dalal’s strategies of organised boycott, disciplined non-engagement and determined stonewalling constitute a coherent, citizen-centred and practical response to a media ecosystem that, in his words and in the lived experience of large numbers of Indians, chose crawling and boot-licking over the harder path of standing upright. The table of rankings records the measurable institutional decline; the public’s open and growing contempt records the moral and democratic cost.
Only sustained and collective refusal to continue feeding the system, combined with the patient construction of independent alternatives, offers a realistic path toward a media landscape that can once again earn and deserve public respect.