— ✍️ Mohit Nirmender

India loves to call itself a democracy of a billion voices. But when it comes to who controls the microphone, the story is very different. According to Oxfam–Newslaundry Report 2022, nearly 90% of key editorial and executive positions across major English and Hindi media outlets are held by upper-caste individuals, highlighting deep structural inequality. This isn’t just imbalance; it’s exclusion disguised as merit.

The media doesn’t merely reflect society, it manufactures it. Newsrooms decide what counts as violence, whose pain is exceptional, and whose is routine. When upper-caste men commit crimes, headlines describe them as Bahubali, Chhote Sarkar, or local strongmen. But when a Dalit or someone from a marginalized community is involved in crime, the same channels label it as hooliganism, 'lawlessness', or 'chaos'. The meaning of the same event changes depending on who is involved. This does not in any way imply that anyone has a license to commit crimes, or that violence of any kind is acceptable. What it highlights is the narrative-building itself, exposing the media's clear double standard.

In his essay "Who Speaks for Whom?", Avichal Warke captures this crisis perfectly. He writes that the problem isn’t only who is represented in the media but who gets to define representation itself. Dalits appear in news, but almost never in the newsroom. They are rarely allowed to report. While much of media coverage falls into this pattern, there are occasional outlets and journalists attempting to challenge this monopoly. Yet, these remain exceptions rather than the rule.

The Mirchpur violence of 2010 shows how this monopoly works. After a Dalit boy and his disabled father were burned alive by upper-caste attackers in Haryana, most channels described it as a clash. No major prime-time debates, no major editorial campaigns and sustained coverage. The story vanished after a few days. What should have been a national reckoning became just another "incident." This is what Stuart Hall meant when he said media doesn’t reflect reality, it constructs it.

This silence is not neutral; it is political. Indian media, like Indian society, runs on what Antonio Gramsci called Hegemony (the ability to make inequality appear normal and natural). When every anchor, editor, and owner comes from the same social background, caste power becomes common sense. The public stops noticing that the truth is being told from one side only.

Behind this cultural bias lies a harder fact: money. Indian media - whether English, Hindi, or regional, relies primarily on advertising rather than subscriptions. The people and corporations who pay for ads are largely from the same privileged castes that dominate newsrooms. A channel that questions caste hierarchy also risks questioning its sponsors. So the bias is not just ideological; it is financially built in. What looks like professionalism often hides the economics of caste comfort.

Even entry into journalism follows this logic. As Pierre Bourdieu would say, those with symbolic capital (status, credentials, and influential networks), naturally occupy positions of legitimacy. They do not need to be openly casteist; their world already excludes those who do not fit. Many Dalits who enter journalism are confined to "caste stories," while politics and economy remain safely in upper-caste hands.

The Oxfam–Newslaundry report makes this visible in numbers. Analysis of hundreds of prime-time debates found that over 85% of panellists came from upper-caste backgrounds, while Dalits and Adivasis were rarely represented. This absence produces what Warke calls "a silence that sounds like balance." It teaches viewers that upper-caste perspectives are objective and Dalit perspectives are emotional, that neutrality belongs to the powerful.

After the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, major newspapers admitted their racial bias. The Washington Post and The New York Times published diversity reports and appointed Black editors. It wasn’t charity; it was accountability. Society forced its media to confront its reflection.

In India, there has been no such reckoning. Speaking about caste bias in newsrooms can still end a career. The result is a democracy that talks endlessly, but listens selectively.

The latest World Press Freedom Index shows India ranked 151st out of 180 countries in 2025, a slight improvement from 159th in 2024, but still in the “very serious” category for press freedom. While government pressure on the media is real, the deeper rot lies within: a press that has historically never represented marginalized communities cannot suddenly defend them when power turns hostile. Persistent structural issues, such as concentrated media ownership, economic dependence on the state, and threats to journalists ensure that India’s media environment remains fragile and unresponsive to those most in need of a voice.

A democracy’s health is not measured by how loudly it speaks, but by who it allows to speak. Today, Indian media remains a closed echo chamber, powerful and self-assured. To break this cycle, newsrooms need more inclusive representation, and audiences must critically engage with the narratives presented.

- The author is an Independent Researcher / Blogger