The Media in India and the Indian Nuclear Weapons Policy 1998–2018: An Abdication of Responsibility

ABSTRACT The media in India did not critically examine India’s decision in 1998 to openly go nuclear. Its coverage reflected the general celebratory mood in society at the time. It has not changed its approach in the decades since 1998; the changes in the media since then and the growth of an aggressive nationalism in Indian politics in the intervening decades have put a value on nuclear weapons which the media has uncritically endorsed. An examination of the coverage by the daily The Hindu over a decade (2000–2009) illustrates the imbalance in coverage and comment. On the whole the media failed to provide a forum for public education on nuclear weapons, or for analysis and comment, or to build an agenda against nuclear weapons