Coercive action against independent media houses that hold Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government to account, and which function in accordance with the constitutionally guaranteed fundamental right to freedom of freedom of expression, has become a new normal in the Modi regime.Over the last decade, numerous ‘raids’ have been conducted by police and investigative agencies controlled by the Union government against digital news and print media platforms, and even some TV channels. A clear pattern emerges in these cases: those who interrogate the powers-that-be are repeatedly acted against. Several journalists have been incarcerated by police, or detained and questioned, merely for performing their routine duty of reporting on events and policies of the government.All of these ‘raids’, arrests and coercive legal actions against independent media houses amount to a severe assault against the freedom of the press. Their aim has been to create a chilling effect on the media fraternity.In this context that we must view the Delhi High Court’s recent judgement quashing the Enforcement Directorate’s case against founding-editor of NewsClick, Prabir Purkayastha, and the money laundering charges slapped against him by the Economic Offences Wing of Delhi Police. The court’s observation that “not only are the present proceedings mala fide, but also an arbitrary attack and abuse of powers on the free and impartial journalism of petitioners” constitute a healing touch for a badly bruised media.It is worth stating that NewsClick, Purkayastha and all others associated with the organisation were subjected to a kind of Dyerism that Indians experienced over a century before, in 1919. That year, an unarmed gathering was attacked and hundreds shot dead on Baisakhi eve in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, by forces led by the British General Reginald Dyer.Also read: The Case Against NewsClick Fell Apart. Here is How, Step by StepMahatma Gandhi had then presciently said that the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh and the imposition by the British rulers of martial law in Punjab in 1919, were not unrelated events.Gandhi had noted with anguish that apart from killing hundreds, Dyerism – behaviour, attitudes and actions akin to the actions General Dyer took – muzzled the press, arrested editors of Punjabi newspaper and detained others, including a trustee of the Tribune newspaper. He said it was all done without even disclosing to the aggreived the grounds of their arrest.Newsclick founding editor Prabir Purkayastha holding up a copy of his book ‘Knowledge as Commons’. Photo: X/@LeftWordBooksGandhi also said that “the doctrine of frightfulness“, which the massacre and the snatching away of press freedom embodied, were the basis of British rule continuing in India. Gandhi, then, appealed to the people to summon what he called their “unbending bravery” to fight Dyerism and defeat it.What was done to Newsclick, Prabir and its journalists and contributors on October 3, 2023 – the raid on around 100 journalists, contributors and staff a day after Gandhi Jayanti – was nothing but a replay of Dyerism. It was a chilling instance of the use of the doctrine of frightfulness, and this time it was done over a century later, at the instance of the Modi regime.Also read: ‘Gross Abuse of Law’, ‘Bald Assertions’: Delhi HC Quashes Police, ED Cases Against NewsClickThe Delhi High Court judgement quashing the FIR filed by the Economic Offences Wing of Delhi Police against Purkayastha and NewsClick, and the Enforcement Directorate’s completely illegal action against them, is a huge victory for freedom of expression, of which press freedom is an inalienable component.The court forcefully and unequivocally ruled that the proceedings of the agency were “an arbitrary attack and abuse of powers on the free and impartial journalism of the petitioners”. It also said, “Apart from bald assertions of there being a criminal conspiracy, there was not a whisper of any incriminating allegation.”“The continuation of the FIR registered by the Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing was nothing but a gross abuse of the process of law,” it observed.Such pronouncements vindicate the stand of NewsClick ever since it began to face repressive actions, and they bolster the arduous struggle it has fought in defence of press freedom. It is freedom of the press for which Gandhi launched his only Satyagraha, called the Individual Satyagraha, in 1940. He described press freedom as the foundation of Swaraj, and urged all concerned to safeguard it with all their might whenever even one stone of that foundation was in danger.It is a celebratory moment for Purkayastha and the NewsClick team, who have registered a historic success in face of the ruthless employment of the brute might of the Modi regime to totally stifle, gag and kill it. Truly, NewsClick displayed unbending bravery, and that has demonstrated its exemplary struggle.It is a victory that marshals the might of the people and the press fraternity towards substantially improving India’s pitiable 157th rank (among 180 countries) in the global press freedom index, and towards restoring its democratic credentials, which are defined, among other things, by the functioning of a free and unhindered media, working within the constitutional framework, to hold the government to account.S.N. Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K R Narayanan.