India: After nearly six months of BJP in West Bengal, pressure against journalists is mounting

Just days after coming to power in May 2026, the new state government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party ("Indian People's Party" or BJP), set the tone by banning civil servants from speaking to the press, in an internal circular dated 20 May 2026. Two months later, the police launched criminal proceedings against two journalists over a headline in Anandabazar Patrika, the country's largest Bengali-language daily, which also saw its office walls vandalised and its journalists harassed online. The independent media organisation Maktoob Media is also facing prosecution on six counts for simply reporting a female politician's comments.

Information cut off at the source

The West Bengal state government issued a circular, dated 19 May, imposing on civil servants a "formal ban, in the absence of official government authorisation, on communicating any document or information directly or indirectly to the press."The circular also banned all civil servants from "participating in media programmes produced by a private entity" without prior authorisation. Presented as a mere reminder of existing rules, the circular nevertheless goes beyond, imposing general and disproportionate restrictions, according to the Indian digital rights organisation Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF).

Complaint, harassment and attack on an editorial team

On 21 August, a day after clashes between groups of students at a university in Kolkata, the local Bengali-language daily Anandabazar Patrika ran a front-page headline describing the violence as "saffron hooliganism" ("saffron" is a reference to Hindu nationalists). A week later, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari demanded an apology from the newspaper, and the police launched a criminal investigation (First Information Report or FIR), following a complaint from a member of the public, against the editor-in-chief Ishani Dutta Ray and the head of the news desk Soma Mukherjee, who subsequently also became victims of cyberbullying, particularly from BJP supporters. Although the allegations in the complaint could have led to an arrest, the Kolkata High Court ordered the police authorities at the end of September not to take any coercive action against the two female journalists until 15 December.

In another act of retaliation, saffron-clad men gathered outside the newspaper's offices in Kolkata on 1 September, chanted slogans hostile to the paper and painted parts of the building's walls saffron - all while the police looked on. The newly-elected BJP government denied any involvement. Yet the online news outlet Alt News reported that several demonstrators were party activists, including a youth wing official.

Media outlet targeted for reporting a female MP's comments

On 19 September, the West Bengal police also filed a complaint against Maktoob Media, a news website launched in 2014 that focuses on human rights, minorities, social exclusion and religious freedom. The complaint concerns the media's reporting, on its X and YouTube accounts, of allegations made by an opposition MP. She denounced the fact that three senior Muslim civil servants had allegedly been excluded from crucial security meetings during the visit to the state by the Home Minister, Amit Shah.

In a letter addressed to X, the police described the content as "purely fabricated" and "malicious." The police also asked the platform to provide data on the media outlet's account, connection and device in question for 1 to 5 February 2026 - several months before the reported events and the complaint itself.

Maktoob Media only became aware of the case when X informed it.

Four of the six charges brought against the media outlet - incitement to hostility between communities, deliberate offence to religious sentiments, dissemination of misleading information likely to incite hatred, inter-communal tensions and public disorder, and incitement of one community to commit offences against another - preclude any possible release on bail.

The BJP won 23 and 29 April 2026 West Bengal state assembly elections . Its victory ended 15 years of rule by the centre-left Trinamool Congress (TMC). RSF had called on the new state government to guarantee journalists the right to report, free from violence, censorship and intimidation.