Future of Indian democracy will depend on how unusually brave its press is

Journalists in India's regional-language media regularly uncover, at great risk to their lives, turpitude among politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen

Last month, the Pakistani government bestowed its third-highest civilian award on the writer and journalist Mohammed Hanif. This, to put it mildly, was unexpected. It's as if Donald Trump had decided to garland Ta-Nehisi Coates with the National Humanities Medal. 

However, for many writers and journalists in neighboring India, ostensibly the world’s largest democracy, the news could only be bittersweet.   

Sweet, because few contemporary writers deserve to be celebrated as much as Hanif. The British-Pakistani novelist Nadeem Aslam once said that while "Pakistan produces people of extraordinary bravery, no nation should ever require its citizens to be that brave." Hanif has