ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a model of journalism focused on justice, or nyaya, and explores how notions of nyaya, as known from and used in Hindi and Vedic philosophical treatises and thought, can be connected to journalistic and democratic practices on a global scale. It is theorized that, at first, by acknowledging the influences of two philosophic traditions—the ancient Hindu philosophy of nyaya as described in Hindu sutras or discourses of Gautama writing in the third century BCE, and the writings on justice by Indian Nobel Laureate, Amartya Sen—and second, by contextualizing Sen’s interpretive use of nyaya and ancient nyaya philosophies, a nyaya-focused journalism can be used to strengthen modern-day democratic journalism. Using a case study of the media coverage of sexual violence in India, it is argued that nyaya or justice can be an important ethical precept in global journalism practices.
