In the contemporary context, media has become a potent tool of geopolitics. It is increasingly being used by western countries as a pressure tool to intimidate countries of the global south and coerce them into kowtowing the line of the west, and compromising their own economic, social, and cultural interests.
The west uses media and think tanks as strategic tools of blackmail. You will see that everything is presumably going great between Bharat and the US, and the two are being hailed as strategic security partners and all that. All of a sudden, the US will issue some controversial statement pertaining to the rights of religious minorities in Bharat claiming our supposedly failing human rights record and our “mistreatment of minorities”. Then, these controversial statements or reports issued by US politicians, government spokespersons, or think tanks would be ceaselessly highlighted by the international media.
The ostensible purpose of all this would be “concern for democracy” but the real purpose, as we all can guess it, is blackmailing Bharat into ceding its ground to let the US have an upper hand in important policy decisions or agreements in the field of hard politics. Thus, the likes of the US use media and think tanks as “soft power” to further its geopolitical objectives.
The latest case in point is western media’s relentless propaganda against the Citizenship Amendment Act. We’ll come to highlighting western media’s anti-Bharat bias in the space to come, but first, let’s discuss the US reaction to Bharat’s notification of CAA. With Bharat notifying CAA and Home Minister Amit Shah clarifying in a detailed interview with ANI that CAA will not impact the citizenship of Bharatiya Muslims in any way, the woke media needed some controversy to spice up the anti-CAA narrative again.
The US supplied that controversy as the US State Department stated that it was “concerned” about the notification on CAA and was closely monitoring its implementation. “We are closely monitoring how this act will be implemented. Respect for religious freedom and equal treatment under the law for all communities are fundamental democratic principles”, said Matthew Miller, the US State Department Spokesperson.
Bharat gave a sharp reaction to the US statement. Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal criticized the US remark and said that the operationalization of the CAA was an internal matter of Bharat. “Lectures by those who have a limited understanding of India’s pluralistic traditions are best not attempted”, he stated.
It’s incredible that a country like the US thinks that it has the right to address a nation and meddle in its internal affairs in the 21st century as if it were a colony of the US. What else explains the high-handed presumptuousness of a country like the US in attacking the democratically elected government of another country and stating that they would be monitoring a law that has been passed by the Parliament of that democracy, as per their constitutional provisions?
But the US of course is the self-anointed savior of democracy, never mind its failed experiments in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere making a mockery of human rights and democracy in these countries. The “democracy” lecture is a geopolitical tool for the likes of the US and they use it to further their strategic interests and coerce countries of the global south into submission, who knowing very well the influence that the US wields on global think tanks, media, and international organizations, get conscious of the US judging them and indicting their supposed wrongdoings.
The US has been lecturing Bharat for ages now on multiple counts. The idea is to use identity politics as a tool to keep the pot of confusion and divisiveness boiling in South Asia so that the region remains stuck in a perpetual mode of conflict and discursive warfare, making it easier for the west to control the region and exert their hegemony.
But it’s good to see that Bharat is finally getting out of the mindset of being in awe of whatever the west says. Bharat issued a string rebuttal to the US remarks against CAA, but even that was not needed, to be honest. The best strategy would have been for Bharat to ignore those remarks and treat them as inconsequential. By responding to such baseless remarks, one gets embroiled in an endless cycle of justification, thus falling into the guilt trap laid by the west.
On the contrary, we should learn this tactic of information warfare from the west and create our own media and think-tank ecosystem criticizing the likes of the US for their “lack of religious freedom”, “crisis of democracy’, and “silencing of the rights of minorities”. Unless we take a pro stand and start giving it back to these countries in their language well in advance, the vicious anti-Bharat propaganda peddled by the west wouldn’t stop. But for that to happen, we first need to decolonize our own media, especially the English language media that seems stuck in a perpetual mode of colonial reverence.
It’s sad that the majority of the mainstream English language media simply regurgitates the western viewpoint and views its own citizens through a biased, colonial lens. There is nothing about a large section of our media that makes it worthy of being called ‘Bharatiya media”. Being neutral and objective is one thing, but becoming a spokesperson and pr agent of the west and consistently acting against the very interests of the country within which you are operating is another.
A recent article published in the Eur Asian Times aptly points to the hypocrisy of the US in criticizing Bharat’s CAA and calling it “anti-Muslim”. The article titled “Lautenberg – Specter vs CAA: Why India’s ‘Transparent’ Citizenship Act Is a Right Move Unlike ‘Vague’ US’ Refuge Policies” talks about the similarities between CAA and the Lautenberg and the Specter Amendments of the US. In a fashion similar to CAA, “the Lautenberg Amendment established a reduced evidentiary burden for applications for refugee status from certain categories of people, including Jews and some Christian minorities from the former Soviet Union, as well as some individuals from Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam”, says the article.
“This Act is only for those who have suffered persecution for years and have no other shelter in the world except India. All told, Hindus, who constituted around 25 percent of the population of what was then west Pakistan (today’s Pakistan) after the Indian subcontinent was divided in 1947, have now been reduced to about 1 (one percent. And Hindus were about 27 percent in what was then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) are now about 7 percent. Obviously, this decline is due to persistent persecution through forcible conversion, leading many of them fleeing to India illegally”, it further says.
Coming to the western media coverage of the CAA notification, it’s on the predictable lines of whipping up anti-Bharat propaganda by calling CAA “anti-Muslim”. Let’s check out the headlines of stories done on this issue by well-known international media outlets. “India enacts citizenship law criticized as discriminatory to ‘Muslims’, reads the headline of a news piece done by The Guardian. “CAA: India to enforce migrant law that excludes Muslims” is the headline of a BBC article. “India’s new citizenship law excludes Muslims. Here’s what to know”, reads The Washington Post headline. “Citizenship Law That Excludes Muslims Takes Effect, India Says”, is the headline of a story done by The New York Times on the issue. “India’s new citizenship law for religious minorities leaves Muslims out”, reads the headline of a story done by CBC radio.
All these stories present a biased, distorted, and one-sided narrative of the issue. The headlines themselves are misleading. Bharat has enacted a law to grant citizenship to persecuted minorities of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. But the headlines of these stories don’t convey that. They put the spotlight on the supposed “anti-Muslim” nature of the law. Quite cleverly, all headlines omit the phrase” persecuted minorities” because including that will make it difficult for them to peddle their biased narrative.
A few headlines at least bother to emphasize that the law has been criticized as anti-Muslim, thus leaving room for the speculation that the law is not necessarily anti-Muslim per se in its conception and intent. But others outrightly declare CAA to be anti-Muslim which is a serious lapse of journalistic principle of objectivity. A news report is supposed to be an objective piece of journalism; its headline cannot be judgmental. But there are multiple headlines of reports done by renowned western media outlets claiming that CAA is anti-Muslim. Imagine Bharatiya media nitpicking laws enacted in western countries and running stories with headlines saying so and so law enacted in this country is anti-Hindu. Would that be acceptable to the west?
Coming to the content of the western coverage of CAA, most of the stories begin with the premise that the law is anti-Muslim, or is perceived as anti-Muslim. They talk about the Shaheen Bagh protests that took place when CAA was passed in 2019 and then mention the anti-CAA protests taking place in the current scenario in states like Kerala. Many of these reports also give the CAA-NRC argument that Muslims in Bharat are concerned that CAA will be implemented in tandem with NRC and thus, the citizenship of Muslims will be taken away, even as religious minorities from other countries will be given Bharatiya citizenship on a platter.
Most of the news reports quote leaders of Congress and other opposition parties who are opposing the CAA and also quote some “Bharatiya intellectuals” opposing the CAA. But apart from all the speculation, subjective opinions, and the CAA-NRC conspiracy theory, these stories aren’t able to give a single convincing reason as to why they say that CAA is anti-Muslim, If the headline of a news story claims that CAA is “anti-Muslim”, then as a reader, my expectation is that the story give me a set of logical points to prove that CAA is anti-Muslim or at least to make me consider that it might be anti-Muslim. But all that one gets are a bunch of subjective opinions and conspiracy theories, the kind of stuff not expected from so-called ‘top-notch media publications.
That’s precisely what I am talking about. Since there is nothing anti-Muslim about CAA, the western media reports calling it “anti-Muslim” won’t have anything to prove by way of facts. Thus, the only way they can build their premise is by confusing the reader with convoluted arguments and a barrage of opinionated and biased quotes and statements. They are ostensibly covering the CAA, but the coverage doesn’t include any viewpoint of the persecuted minorities of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh whom the law intends to benefit. What is the condition of these religious minorities in Islamic countries that warranted the need for such a law in the first place? There is numerous evidence of persecution of Hindu minorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. There is no way one doesn’t cannot come across this evidence unless they have been living under a rock or have a pre-defined agenda.
There is not a single interview or a quote of the intended beneficiaries of CAA, or for that matter, a quote, or point of view of any intellectual or activist working for the rights of Hindu refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, currently staying in different parts of Bharat in the western media coverage of CAA notification. A truly objective news coverage would present points of view from both sides, the side of those who consider the law anti-Muslim as well as the point of view of those whom the law intends to benefit. By choosing to become a spokesperson for only one point of view, and completely ignoring the issue CAA intends to address or pretending it doesn’t exist, the western media has bid adieu to the most basic of principles of good journalism, that is – objectivity and neutrality.
Hindu and Sikh refugees living in Delhi also recently staged protests near the Delhi office of Congress over remarks by opposition parties regarding the Bharatiya government’s notification of CAA. The protestors especially expressed their displeasure against Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s insensitive and insulting comments calling them Pakistanis and criminals who have infiltrated Bharat. They demanded an apology from the Delhi CM over his remarks against the implementation of the CAA. But none of the well-known western media outlets have reported these protests. I haven’t seen a single story from the likes of the BBC, The Guardian, etc. reporting on the protests in Delhi by the Hindu and Sikh refugees from Islamic countries CAA intends to benefit. Even if these protests are reported at all by western media, I think it will be through a t twisted frame of questioning the protestors themselves and suggesting that all this is mere political appeasement of Bharat’s “right-wing Hindu majoritarian government”.
The western media routinely insinuates that the Modi government is doing this and that for electoral gains. Be it the Ayodhya Ram Mandir Inauguration Ceremony or the CAA notification, it tirelessly tries to prove that all this is election gimmickry by the Modi government. But what are the stakes of the western media in Bharat’s elections, one wonders? Why is it so concerned about Bharat’s internal affairs? The west will say- because it’s their right to make sure democracy everywhere is working cool and fine, but the façade of saving the democracy of others aside, the west should perhaps first give its own media outlets a bunch of refresher courses in journalistic objectivity and neutrality.
