Protest and journalism are criminal acts, Parliament is irrelevant, duties supersede rights,and profanity flows from the ordinary.

On October 8, Justice Sanjay Dhar of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court delivered a judgement that was remarkable in its ordinariness: it restated the law, common sense and the basic tenets of – what was once – the world’s largest democracy.

The case he was called to adjudicate upon was a two-year-old story in the Times of India. The headline read: “Stone pelters in J&K now target tourists, four women injured.” It was ordinary journalism, but it led to a criminal case against the reporter for “making or publishing a statement or rumour creating fear or alarm”.https://scroll.in/article/975478/the-twilight-of-indian-democracyhttps://scroll.in/article/975478/the-twilight-of-indian-democracy