I Am on the Hit List: A Journalist’s Murder and the Rise of Autocracy in India

Romig combines investigative reporting with moral urgency, tracing how targeted violence reshapes public life. The book treats a single murder not as an isolated event but as a lens on a broader political climate. It pays careful attention to the machinery of intimidation—how fear spreads, how truth gets constrained, how everyday choices become risky. Romig writes with clarity and restraint, letting facts accumulate into a frightening picture. The narrative also foregrounds human cost: families, colleagues, and communities living with threats that never fully disappear. It’s a book about journalism under pressure, but also about citizenship—what happens when speaking becomes dangerous. The pace is propulsive, but the effect is sobering rather than sensational. You feel the stakes of information itself: who controls it, who pays for it, who is silenced. It leaves you asking hard questions about democracy and the price of dissent. Essential reading for understanding modern autocracy’s quieter methods.