Media Misworks
Despite the military's technological prowess and tactical victories, India's international standing collapsed under the weight of reckless media sensationalism, diplomatic overreach, and the unchecked proliferation of communal hate speech that alienated potential allies. https://thewire.in/media/how-indian-media-sabotaged-its-own-war-efforts
Why did no country stand with us in those four crucial days, like China, Turkey and Azerbaijan did for Pakistan? Why was the International Monetary Fund able to sanction another one billion dollars for Pakistan in the midst of its nuclear sabre-rattling? Why was Trump again able to hyphenate India and Pakistan and throw in the mediation spanner in the works, knowing fully well our historical opposition to it? Why did the international reporting of those four days favour the Pakistani version of events rather than ours?
The answer, perhaps, lies in what Arun Shourie told Karan Thapar in an interview on May 13, that “the Indian media has destroyed our credibility.” With, may I add, not a little help from the government and its right wing cohorts. This ensured that we lost the global perception war.
Media (particularly television) reporting since the Pahalgam incident has been (again in the words of Shourie) no less than “a crime against the country”.
The misreporting of the conflict crossed all limits of fakery, dishonesty and war mongering, studios were converted to mendacious war-rooms where all manner of fiction was concocted: the destruction of Karachi port, the occupation of Islamabad, the imminent fall of Rawalpindi, even the bombing of Kirana Hills and Pakistan’s nuclear installations and the release of radiation (denied by the Indian Air Force and the International Atomic Energy Agency, respectively). Every single hour these channels contradicted the official briefings in Delhi, causing confusion, panic and loss of our credibility internationally.
by Avay Shukla
19/05/2025
https://freespeechcollective.in/censorship/shhhutter-the-p-word-at-your-own-peril/ Geeta Seshu examines how online space continued to shrink 
when it came to any mention of the genocide in Gaza. On December 9, 2025, they posted a video about the manner in which Israeli tourists to Himachal Pradesh, a large number of whom are soldiers of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), routinely come to the state to unwind as part of their decompression post-military service. A coordinated attack on this post saying that the duo were “inciting targeted attacks, similar to the Bondi Beach attack, against Jewish tourists”. Other accounts, including those from prominent right-wing journalists Aditya Raj Kaul and Kamlesh Singh, a news director at India Today, called for their arrest. Some accounts called for violence against them, including rape and death, while others issued calls for ripping off the nose ring one of them wears! Pundir, who identifies as queer, was subjected to homophobic attacks.
In the wake of the April 22 Pahalgam massacre, a former BSF officer exposes how agenda-driven media coverage has deepened anti-Muslim sentiment, diverted attention from security failures, and undermined India’s pluralist fabric.
A Tragedy Twisted: How Media Fuels Communal Hate After Pahalgam - The Wire
The media, instead of focussing on the Hindu/Muslim angle, should have asked how such an act could be carried out by militants without intelligence agencies detecting their footprints – electronic or otherwise.
Another question that the media should have asked is how and why there was no security – not even police – at a popular tourist place that was reportedly witnessing a gathering of a large number of tourists on a daily basis.
While reports of the selective killings of Hindus in Pahalgam are perhaps correct to an extent, giving this exclusive coverage at the cost of the alternative narrative expressed by tourists has provoked unscrupulous elements of society to harass and harm Muslims in many parts of the country.
02/05/2025
ANI's Smita Prakash offers a masterclass in how right-wing “intellectuals” and internet trolls seek to protect authoritarians from scrutiny.
https://thewire.in/communalism/eight-minutes-of-an-interview-and-the-confession-of-a-right-wing-mind
This tactic of seeks to control conversations by using a bad line of questioning to deflect valid criticism. While exaggerating opponents’ arguments to discredit them isn’t exclusive to the right-wing, it’s more effective for them in this context. In this framework, truth and falsity are secondary to audience agreement and showmanship.
by Raj Shekhar Sen
13/05/2024
Kunal Purohit's book delves into Hindutva pop culture that populates social media. https://thewire.in/communalism/soundtrack-hindutva-minority-messages-kunal-purohit-h-pop
What are the messages that circulate on WhatsApp in Hindi? Most of all, what kind of videos are shown on YouTube, where anyone can upload programming, with virtually no restrictions on the content. Patently false history, bogus news and most of all, songs, poetry, speeches all of which promote anti-minority messages which often result in violence.
Kunal Purohit, a Mumbai based journalist – in the English language – stumbled across this phenomenon when he was in a small town, Gumla, in Jharkhand doing some story, when he heard of how, for the first time in years, a Ram Navami procession almost turned violent
Purohit got intrigued and that sent him down a rabbit hole to find out more. The book, H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars, is the result of those investigations, a first of its kind in the English language, which should come as an eye-opener for all of us.
There is a whole Hindutva eco-system of nasty, hate filled popular culture that goes beyond just such aggressive songs. Online media, especially on Youtube, is filled with poets, singers, journalists, fake historians – anyone really – who regularly spew out messages that are anti-Muslim – in the most virulent way – and hail Narendra Modi but also other political leaders like Adityanath, warn of Hindu rashtra and much more.
10/01/2024