
Role of International Media in Defaming Bharat

Rajshekhar Hariharan
24 February 2023
"The role of media in the lives of citizens has increased with the increase in technology. The news which used to be ...."
.....limited to the newspapers in the morning or the TV screens, are now notifying the mobile phones of citizens irrespective of the credibility of the news whether it be from the social media platforms or from the applications. Now as the source to single news are many, it is merely impossible to relate with the original incident of happening. Media has just become a perception game which forces people to assume that “this would have happened”.
This is a game which media platforms play, instead of neutral reporting of incidents they mould the incident portraying the agenda or ideology that a particular platform follows. This involves a lot of International Diplomacy, participation of Non-State Actors, bribing the media platform for propagating false information leading to the cause of internal disturbance inside the country.
Now Bharat with a country of 1.38 Billion people becomes very vulnerable from the international standpoint of getting exploited to the false propaganda of information from various media platforms. That is why the issues of religion, caste, poverty are the most exploited topics causing internal disorder and disturbance within the country. This propaganda’s are mostly spread during the course of elections, to hamper the effective governance mechanism or defame the ruling government leading to a political crisis in the country.
Instances Where International Media dominated the False Narrative towards Bharat
The COVID-19 Pandemic: The COVID-19 Pandemic which shook the entire world, was actually the best managed by Bharat in terms of timely imposition of lock downs, proper supply of essentials with necessary restrictions and the vaccination drive which made Bharat unparalleled to any other country in the COVID-19 management. It took only 9 months for Bharat to invent the vaccine that too with two in number i.e. Covi-shield and Covaxin. Despite this the International media kept on criticizing Bharat and its government for the mismanagement caused during the pandemic and also helped actors to build a narrative against the Bharat. It was then the export of vaccines that helped Bharat to falsify the narrative that International Media Possessed.
Ukraine-Russia War: The Ukraine-Russia war which started from 25th of February 2022 and is still in the going, questioned a lot on the stance that Bharat will take in the United Nation Bodies that held the voting. The questions were always put by the western media as to why Bharat is taking a diplomatic Stance when it comes to Russia. It was delighting to witness the External Affairs Minister of India clarifying all doubts of western media with very straight forward and blunt answers, specifically for the questions affiliated to the Oil purchase from Russia. As the minister told to ask the same question to the European Union.
Citizenship Amendment Act: This reform was brought by the government of Bharat three years before. Without knowing the wherewithal of the reform, its policies, the media started building a false narrative regarding the same, targeting a religion and causing internal disturbance inside the country.
Farm Laws: The three major farm laws introduced by the Government of India regarding farmers and mending the agricultural policies became a major cause of disagreement for farmers resulting in a Non-Violent strike carried out in the National Capital. But suddenly on the occasion of 71st republic day i.e. 26th of January, 2021, the protest became violent which was accused of the non-state actors investing the resources in the narrative building.
Media is considered to be the 4th Pillar of Democracy and taking this into account they should be responsible enough while broadcasting any news, event etc. The media has full right to question the political establishment and should continue to do it, but not by the means of involving non state actors, bribery and spreading false information causing mayhem inside the country. Unlike it should have a neutral approach where it disagrees with the decision making as well as agree at some points with the establishment.