The West has a frozen and false idea of India

Indian Express

26-05-2025

As Indian delegations tell the world about Operation Sindoor, it is worth noting the concern many have expressed that while India was militarily successful, the 'narrative' battle was lost. India needs to have a global channel like the BBC, CNN, or Al Jazeera.
In 2016, I was invited by Prasar Bharati to be on an expert advisory committee to start an independent global digital news platform. There were two brief meetings that summer, but nothing came of them. Almost 10 years have passed. India lives through one story, but the world sees something else altogether.
The cornerstone of the global media's narrative on terrorism today is that it cannot be considered terrorism. It is instead a survival struggle of the oppressed. And the oppressor is a Hindu, from cow protectors to gurus and quiz-show hosts. Movies like Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Hotel Mumbai (2018) and Monkey Man (2024) have hammered home that message. Millions around the world have seen Hindu lynch mobs in their theatres and homes. The news headlines have echoed the pattern, crying 'Hindu nationalism' even after terror attacks by Islamist groups. The Pahalgam massacre, too, was obfuscated in the press. They called it a case of 'indiscriminate firing'. It wasn't.
There are several ideas going around in response. One is that India should ignore the Western press and frustrate them. Their credibility is low anyway, some add. This has its merits, but also its risks. Even if readers are sceptical about the US media, they still tend to believe lies when it comes to some issues, like India. This is a case of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect. Another issue is the gap between popular and elite opinion. When delegations visit, they meet officials, but the real storytelling needs to happen with the public, in schools, colleges, and so on.
Another key limitation is that India's version of its story is only 'world famous in India' or in weekend gatherings of the Indian diaspora. The mainstream mind of millions of Americans is being churned by billions of dollars of investment in media and higher education made by foreign governments and interests, shaping narratives inside the US in their favour. As The Free Press puts it, Qatar has 'bought' America. But the key factor here is not just money. Its officials also learned exactly how to 'push the buttons' and win the hearts and minds of even the most progressive college students.
India's image, on the other hand, is still largely what it has been since the 1920s and the Anglo-American intelligence project known to us as Katherine Mayo's Mother India (1927). Its tropes have survived the Civil Rights movement, the hippy era, the Cold War, and the Y2K boom. No one has really sought to change it at a foundational level. Perhaps, the assumption is that it doesn't have consequences for us as individuals.
But there is a cost to living in an ecology of false narratives. Some in the diaspora blindly accept the local media narratives about India. Others cope creatively, citing stories like how Obama kept a Hanuman figurine in his pocket. But for the most part, there is uneasiness about the reality of being held in a narrative hostage situation. A topic like racism or Hinduphobia often leaves heads hanging in Indian social gatherings. India simply has no narrative abroad, nothing that sticks in the American public like, 'This is what we stand for.' This absence is not just due to a leadership lag. It is also cultural. Historically, we don't have stories that drive us to impose them on others. We just produce enough at a micro-level to cope, while others try to do that to us.
The West's narrative dominance must be seen not only in terms of technology but also in relation to its cultural roots in propagated religion. In Biblical movies like The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), or the heartwarming 1970s comedy Oh God!, one finds attention to not just the duty, but also to the joys of spreading one's message, of communicating. And today, even if religion has declined among American youth, the zeal to believe in a cause is as strong as ever – be it for Palestine or LGBTQ rights or climate change.
This passion doesn't just occur naturally. There are well-organised institutions built around expertise and experience that help students here channel their expressive power from a young age into lifelong careers in media, arts, journalism, activism, teaching, and so on. Whether it's a prophet of doom or a herald of hope, the tropes about the messenger are very much around here. In India, on the other hand, even the sage Narada has been caricatured and denigrated from a revered status to a TV show jester in just a few decades.
The world's biggest battleground today is for attention. India has already been fixed as a target on this battlefield. Its symptoms are showing up more and more in the West. After the Pulwama attack, Trevor Noah laughed and sang 'Time for you to die!' in a clumsy effort to urge peace between India and Pakistan. This time around, Jimmy Dore sneered over a clip of Arnab Goswami talking about the pain we felt about Pahalgam and imitated his accent, something usually considered racist in America. Not just decency, but even facts fly out of the window these days on American TV. After the 2024 elections, Bill Maher smugly claimed that Narendra Modi had lost the elections.
In an isolated, premodern world, none of this might have mattered. But today, we have to choose whether to be the Pied Piper or the mice.
The writer is professor of Media Studies, University of San Francisco