India
Threats against free speech, academic freedom, and digital rights have accelerated in India in recent years. Although the number of writers behind bars dropped to 2 in PEN America’s 2025 Freedom to Write Index, the overall environment for free expression remained challenging. The government continued to impose internet shutdowns, censorship, website blockages, and persistent legal and administrative harassment and arrests of writers, journalists, scholars, and activists. Those who express dissenting views also face threats from non-state actors.
What You Need to Know
India has retained many colonial-era laws that restrict freedom of expression and association, and in recent years, further restrictive laws and the erosion of judicial independence has weakened its democracy.
Writers face politically-motivated legal charges for their writing on politics, caste, ethnic and religious minorities, and language, while journalists face detention and charges for their reporting.
Writers endure online harassment, physical threats, lawsuits, or other forms of intimidation for their views, including sharing the perspective of ethnic minorities.
News
Individual Cases
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Rana Ayyub
Status: Continued HarassmentWashington Post columnist Ayyub has been targeted by multiple online harassment campaigns, resulting in doxxing, rape threats, and death threats.… More
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P. Varavara Rao
Status: Conditional ReleaseA renowned Telugu poet and leftist intellectual, Rao has been imprisoned by multiple governments for his viewpoints. In August 2018,… More
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Arundhati Roy
Status: Continued HarassmentWinner of the Man Booker prize and a longtime activist, Roy reported in August 2019 that a court had ordered… More
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Hany Babu
Status: Conditional ReleaseA professor of English literature and language, Babu faces charges of “propagating” communist activities, Maoist ideologies, and plotting anti-state attacks… More
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Fahad Shah
Status: Conditional ReleaseShah, a Kashmiri editor and columnist, was arrested in February 2022 for publishing “anti-national content.” After being held for 22… More
India at 75
To mark India at 75, PEN America reached out to authors from India and the Indian diaspora to write short texts expressing what they felt. The authors hold a spectrum of political views, and may be in disagreement about much else, but they are united in their concern for the state of Indian democracy.
