How Indian Media Sabotaged its Own War Efforts

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19-05-2025

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How Indian Media Sabotaged its Own War Efforts
Avay Shukla
5 minutes ago
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.
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Going beyond the nitpicking about the number of 'assets' lost by India and Pakistan, it is now clear that we have inflicted significant losses on the latter.
In doing so our defence forces have also demonstrated the technological and air power to enforce the Prime Minister's stated resolve to extract a heavy price for any future terror attacks. Why then is there no chorus of global support for India in its battle against terrorism? Why did the wide-spread surge of sympathy post Pahalgam peter out so soon? 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'.
First, these four or five rogue channels with their deranged, hate-filled and venomous anchors consistently equated terrorists and Pakistan with Muslims in general, distorting the narrative and seeking to drive a thicker wedge between our two major communities. This is something they have been doing, without any check, for the last ten years, but in a time of war this can be particularly dangerous for the unity of the nation and the morale of the armed forces.
Also read: Backstory | India's Media Betrayed the Country In a Time of War, Here's How
The language used by these anchors in their broadcasts can only belong to the gutters where they were perhaps born. Newslaundry has compiled a short clip of some of these instances and I would urge the reader to view it to grasp the utter depths of coarseness and vulgarity to which they have sunk: in one clip the anchor, who calls himself a retired Major (much to the shame of our army) describes the Foreign Minister of a strategically important (for us) Islamic nation as a ' suar ka aulad ' (son of a pig) and even writes it out on the screen in case you were hard of hearing! This has since resulted in a diplomatic row but, as expected, no action has been taken against this anchor for creating enmity with a foreign power, a standard criminal action against journalists who do not enjoy the govt's patronage.
This is not behaviour calculated to endear our country to Islamic nations: just a couple of days later Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE supported the IMF loan to Pakistan. It could have been a coincidence, but I doubt it.
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. And even now, one week after the cease fire came into effect, they continue with their war mongering instead of trying to bring down temperatures, instill calm and report only on facts.
The government too did its bit to damage our journalistic reputation by its usual ham-handed and selective targeting of the few reporters and commentators who had established a reputation for independent, fearless and critically objective reporting. It committed a perception hara-kiri by taking down channels like The Wire, 4 PM, Pravin Sawhney, Punya Prasun Bajpai, and filing cases against Neha Singh Rathore and ' Dr. Medusa '. The only voices which could be trusted to be objective were silenced- the world drew the obvious lessons from this- that the Indian govt. was hiding something- and discounted everything as propaganda.
The whole world knows that India does not have an independent media, and that our TV news channels and print media are defacto extensions of the govt's information apparatus. So, the loss of credibility of the media over the progress of the war resulted in a loss of trust and credibility of the official spokespersons also, be they the MEA or the defence briefings. To put it bluntly, no one believed our version of events and relied instead on Reuters, BBC, New York Times, Washington Post and spokespersons of other countries!
What has added to our discomfiture and isolation is the complete failure of Indian diplomacy ever since S. Jaishankar has taken over the reins in the MEA. His pulpit thumping arrogance, his aggressive preaching and abrasive moralising to other countries whenever he grabs a mike, his talking down to countries far above us in the global pecking order, his refusal to recognise that our 'vishwaguru' ambitions do not match our status in international matters, his inability to discern that most leading nations now consider India a flawed democracy which stands for no principles but sheer opportunism – all this has led the global community to suspect our politics and policies and to keep a reasonable distance from us. The war with Pakistan has shown that India has no allies left, not even in our immediate neighbourhood. Our soldiers fought alone.
The last nail in the coffin of our reputation and international standing was, as expected, hammered in by the right-wing cyber warriors and the infamous 'IT cell'. Misinformation apart, social media was flooded with posts spewing hate against Kashmiris and their community leading to Kashmiri students being driven out of hostels and colleges in some states, demands for ethnic cleansing of Muslims and the annihilation of Pakistan; one BJP Minister in Madhya Pradesh even labelled Colonel Sofiya Quereshi as a sister of the terrorists! The state took no action against him till the high court intervened suo motu and ordered the registration of a case against him – his party is yet to take any action against him.
The ruthless trolling of the foreign secretary and his daughter by right wing sympathisers (for announcing a cease-fire) forced the officer to suspend his X account. The depths of perversion were reached when even Himanshi Narwal, the widow of a naval officer killed by the terrorists at Pahalgam, was not spared: right-wing bigots trolled her mercilessly, poured venom on her, wanted her to be shot, cast doubts on her character and morals. Why? Because she appealed for communal harmony and to stop the violence being inflicted on Muslims and Kashmiris. Did our soldiers fight for such perverts?
The world, and the international media, took notice of this and decided to distance itself from India; we allowed the fundamental cause of the conflict, where we were on strong grounds – terrorism – to be relegated to the back seat, and the centre stage was instead occupied by the Hindu India versus Islamic Pakistan narrative. The plot was lost, along with any support we could have otherwise expected.
Diplomatically and perception-wise, we have frittered away our gains on the battlefield and in the skies, we may well have boxed ourselves into a corner with our gladiatorial and cocky rhetoric. And there are no seconds in our corner. For you cannot occupy the moral high ground when your feet are firmly planted in the swamp of mercenary opportunism, contempt for basic human rights, hate and religious nationalism. This is not what our soldiers fought for. They won, but as a country we have let them down.
Avay Shukla is a former IAS officer.
A version of this article first appeared on the author's blog View from [Greater] Kailash.
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