Declining freedom of press is a hallmark of authoritarianism, and India, clearly headed down that path under the Modi government, is no exception. Over the past decade, conditions for journalists have gone from bad to worse. While We Watched is a documentary that chronicles the tragic saga of Ravish Kumar, a journalist at NDTV: a left-liberal news platform critical of the BJP government.

This suppression of freedom is enabled through different assertions of power: through threats; through earnest middle-class boycotts; and, above all, through capital: the withdrawal of advertising, the precarisation of employees, and—missing from the film—the eventual acquisition of the channel by the Adani Group, owned by the (then) second-richest man in the world.

We invite you to join us for a screening of While We Watched, followed by a discussion on press freedom under capitalism.