Click to expand Image Members of the media protest a police raid on the office of a news portal and homes of journalists and writers linked to it, at the Press Club in New Delhi, India, October 4, 2023. © 2023 Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters This month the Indian government banned 25 books on the Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir, saying they “excite secessionism.”The action by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi reflects a wider attempt to silence dissent in response to unusually sharp criticisms over its policies. After the news outlet Wire and others questioned the government’s handling of a deadly militant attack in Jammu and Kashmir in April, Modi supporters in Assam state filed criminal complaints against the website for its reporting.Assam police then filed two cases against Wire, including under a vaguely worded criminal law provision that replicates the British colonial-era sedition law, which the Supreme Court suspended in 2023 because of its rampant misuse to silence government critics. Several journalist organizations condemned the charges and the Supreme Court stepped in to protect Wire journalists from arrest.The court also protected the well-known political analyst Sanjay Kumar after police in Maharashtra state accused him of defamation and forgery, a day after he had publicly apologized for data error while evaluating election fraud. The political opposition has criticized the Election Commission of India for alleged partisan actions.Indian authorities have long used vague legal provisions as a political tool to silence critics, but since the BJP took office in 2014, the crackdown on freedom of expression has escalated. Comedians, artists, and students have been among those targeted, while human rights activists and outspoken academics remain particularly vulnerable. An independent report released in May, examining over 400 criminal cases against journalists between 2012 and 2022, found “widespread misuse of vague and overly broad criminal laws” such as defamation, sedition, and public order provisions, mostly to target any criticism of public officials.Religious minorities are especially at risk. Assam’s BJP chief minister described the police’s arrest of 97 people for their social media comments on the Kashmir attack as taking action against “anti-national and anti-Hindu culprits.” The news website Scroll reported that over 90 percent of those detained were Muslim.BJP leaders have frequently evoked nationalism when confronted with their deteriorating rights record. The government needs to refocus its efforts on protecting fundamental rights instead of clamping down on them.