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Harsh Mander: When lawless cruelty becomes state policy – India's casting of Rohingya into the sea
In 11 years of Modi's stewardship of the Indian republic, the Indian people have become inured to sometimes numbing targeted cruelty, meted out by state authorities as state policy. Bulldozers raze Muslim homes without any legal process, people who raise voices of dissent are locked for years in prisons without due process, police bullets fell or permanently disable thousands, shrines are flattened, and the police stands by as men are beaten to death by lynch mobs. But even by these abysmal standards of hate politics as state policy, the Indian state recently plummeted to new depths. Credible reports filtered in despite the thick walls of government-controlled media, of 40 Rohingyas – including women, teenagers, seniors and one cancer patient – thrown into the sea from a naval ship. They were abandoned to desperately swim to the shore of Myanmar. This is the land they had fled to escape genocide. When I first heard fragments of this news I responded with utter disbelief. With time this changed to shame and rage. This travesty occurred in the wake of the storms of hate that followed the Pahalgam terror attack. Television studios and right-wing social media handles scalded with anger targeting not just Pakistanis but people they alleged were proxies and supporters of Pakistani terror – Indian Muslims and Rohingya refugees in India. It did not matter that these allegations were Islamophobic, and entirely wild and incendiary. The state did nothing to quell or contradict these contentions. The microscopic population of Rohingya refugees in India, living on the precipice of bare survival at the best of times, felt even more unguarded and exposed. As if to confirm their worst fears, state authorities soon launched campaigns to round up Rohingyas, confine them in detention centres and sometimes, as in Gujarat, to demolish their homes. The news of Rohingya refugees being thrown off an Indian naval ship into the sea was first broken by the media portal Maktoob Media followed by a careful investigative report by Scroll. The events that led up to this began on May 6 and 7, when as hostilities broke out between India and Pakistan, the Delhi Police organised a major crackdown against Rohingya refugees. Scroll reports that at least 43 Rohingya men, women and children were detained after raids on the homes of Muslim and Christian Rohingya refugees in five slum settlements across Delhi: Hastasal, Uttam Nagar, Madanpur Khadar, Vikaspuri, and Shaheen Bagh. At least one Rohingya man was dragged out from a public hospital where he was tending to his wife. They spent hours in police stations without food, then were transferred to Delhi's detention centre for 'illegal immigrants' in Inderlok. They were told that this was only to collect their biometric data. The refugees report abysmal conditions of sanitation, food and water at the detention centre. From there, they were bussed to the Delhi airport and flown 1,300 kilometres to Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Following this, the petrified bunch report being blindfolded, their hands shackled, and boarded on to a naval ship. The sea journey was harrowing. Some women allege being groped and sexually harassed. The authorities assured them that they were being shipped to safety in Indonesia. Three or four hours later, their blindfolds and shackles were removed. Given life jackets, they were all forced to jump into the sea – including older people, children, women and the ailing. Fortunately, they all survived. They reached the shore, but speaking to local people, their dread compounded. They realised that they were not in Indonesia but back in Myanmar, the country they had fled to escape genocide, ethnic cleansing and military crackdowns. They found out that they were in the war-torn southern coast of Myanmar, far from their homeland in Rakhine. Their good fortune was that this patch was not controlled by the military junta. In charge was the civilian National Unity Government in exile, that the military had violently ousted, so the ejectees were safe at least for the present. This horrific tale emerged first from calls to family members left behind in Delhi. To verify the veracity of their accounts, Scroll compared the names and ages of the 40 refugees provided by the National Unity Government with the list of the 43 refugees picked up in Delhi. It found 36 of these to be the same or substantially similar. The Rohingya in Delhi also verified the photographs. These facts seem beyond doubt. That the Indian state chose to pick up around 40 Rohingya refugees – all of whom, incidentally were recognised to be refugees by the United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR – in a sudden crackdown, and ultimately threw them into the sea with only a life jacket, close to the shore of a land that they fled to escape genocide. Moe, the minister in Myanmar's civilian government-in-exile, said to Scroll, 'Deporting them while they were attempting refuge is sending them back to the hell they escaped from and survived.' Thomas Andrews, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, described 'the idea that Rohingya refugees have been cast into the sea from naval vessels' as nothing short of 'outrageous', 'unconscionable' and 'unacceptable'. It is true that India did not sign the 1951 Refugee Convention, which protects the legal rights of refugees – defined as persons fleeing persecution on grounds of race, religion, nationality, social group or political opinion. Their most crucial right under the Convention is 'non-refoulement', which bars states from sending back refugees to persecution in their home countries. They also are entitled to secondary rights under the convention, such as to education, work and property. But even if India is not legally bound by the Refugee Convention, international customary law still binds India to not force people escaping genocidal persecution to return to the land where their lives are critically threatened. Not just this. Article 21 of India's Constitution guarantees the right to life and liberty with dignity not only of citizens but all persons in the territory of India regardless of their legal status. The forceful banishment of the Rohingya into the seas near the coast of Myanmar clearly violates both international customary law and Indian constitutional law. And, apart from obligations imposed by the law, India has long argued that even without signing the Convention, it has in practice opened its borders to more refugees than most other countries in the world. Refugees who have found sanctuary in the Indian republic include Tibetans from China, Hindus from Bangladesh and Pakistan, Sri Lankan Tamils and Chin minorities from Myanmar. It is a proud tradition from which India has ignominiously fallen. With a tradition of centuries' vintage of welcoming the persecuted of the world; a secular democratic Constitution that guarantees the right to life even of those who are not legal citizens; and the obligations of international customary law, how has India today descended to this place? A place in which exceptional cruelty, prejudice and a casual defiance of constitutional obligations and customary international law have become official state policy? India of course has the legal right to return people from other countries who unlawfully entered India. But the law requires that the return of undocumented migrants who are convicted under the Foreigners Act, 1946 must be carefully negotiated with the country of origin. Further, when the country of origin refuses to recognise them as its citizens – like the Myanmar military government refuses to recognise Rohingya people as its citizens – and instead they are threatened with genocidal violence, the forced return of persons to conditions of genocide violates international law, constitutional obligations and the principles of ordinary humanity. The Supreme Court in 2021 underlined that deportations of Rohingya refugees cannot be allowed 'unless the procedure prescribed for such deportation is followed'. It is true also that India does not have a refugee policy. Indian law does not distinguish between refugees and asylum-seekers on the one hand, and undocumented immigrants on the other. But this has not come in the way of India becoming home to persecuted Tibetans, Sri Lankan Tamils and Pakistani and Bangladeshi Hindus. India under Modi in 2019 amended a law to fast-track the grant of citizenship rights to persecuted minorities in India's neighbourhood, with one major exception. This is that they should not be of Muslim identity. The Rohingya are often cited to be the most persecuted minority in the world. They are also from India's neighbourhood, like Hindu minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Why then are they barred not just from citizenship but even long-term visas? Instead why are they stigmatised as both dangerous and parasitical, and in recent years forcefully ejected? Is it only because of their religious identity? Throwing people off a naval ship into the sea is only an extreme manifestation of a policy of 'pushing back' undocumented persons across international borders into the country from which they originated. Effectively a policy of 'pushing back' means that the state chooses to sidestep due legal process and deny persons the right to state their claims to continue to reside in India. The person who the state claims is a foreign citizen might want to claim that she is an Indian citizen, that she is in India because she is related by marriage or otherwise to Indians, or that she is escaping persecution and seeks asylum in this country. The policy of pushing back denies the undocumented person to make and prove these claims. Instead, the state deems unilaterally that the person is an alien who must be forcefully removed from Indian soil. Along with this, by resorting to a policy of 'pushing back' undocumented persons, the state frees itself from the obligation of negotiating through diplomatic channels with the country of origin to accept the alien. Pushing back undocumented persons is not a policy created by the Modi-led BJP government. Angshuman Choudhury in Frontline and Rizwana Shamshad in her book Bangladeshi Migrants in India: Foreigners, Refugees or Infiltrators? record that the Union Home Minister under the Congress government, P Chidambaram, in 1989 reported to Parliament that it had 'pushed back' 35,131 'Bangladeshi infiltrators' through the Assam, Tripura and West Bengal borders. In 1992, the PV Narasimha Rao-led Congress government launched a drive it named 'Operation Pushback' to round up hundreds of so-called 'illegal Bangladeshis' from Delhi and forcibly push them into Bangladesh through its border with West Bengal. In 2011, again a minister of a Congress-led government told Parliament that the Border Security Force undertook deportations in the ''push back' mode' if the identities of the alleged 'illegal Bangladeshis' could not be verified within 30 days. However, under the Modi-led government from 2014, the policies both of detention and 'pushing back' of undocumented persons is driven by testosterone. It has acquired a lethality, force and hyper-masculinity that derives from the central ideological project of the BJP and of its ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. At its core lies visceral hatred against the Indian Muslim. Right from his first national election campaign in 2014, Modi alleged grave dangers posed by what he and his party compatriots describe as 'infiltrators', ghuspaithiyas or Bangladeshis. He overheated and deployed this language far more nakedly in the 2024 national elections. His cabinet and party colleagues, led by his closest associate Amit Shah, went much further, including describing them, in 2018, as insects and parasites. What is worthy of note is that when BJP leaders and right-wing trollers rail against undocumented immigrant – who they variously described as infiltrators, ghuspaithiyas, 'Bangladeshis', Rohingyas, insects and parasites – what they really are doing is dog-whistling against Indian Muslims. Their political message is that the Congress and other opposition parties 'appeased' Indian Muslims and illegally opened the borders for Bangladeshi and Rohingya infiltrators only because they would vote for these opposition parties. It is the BJP alone that has the political courage and strength to take on these dangerous internal enemies. Therefore cruelty to the Rohingya is presented to BJP supporters as the gift to the Hindu majority of the strongman Hindu leader. Constructing the Rohingya as an enemy, as an intolerable burden to the nation, however requires considerable suspension of rational reasoning. First consider just their numbers. Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kirren Rijiju informed Parliament in 2017 that there are 40,000 Rohingyas illegally residing in India. The UNHCR places the numbers today closer to 22,500. They subsist without assistance from the Indian government, typically in sub-human shanties as rag-pickers, domestic helpers and daily wagers. In a country of 1.3 billion people, by what stretch of imagination could 22,500 dirt-poor Rohingya people be considered an unbearable drain on India's resources? The claim that they are terrorists is also a stigma thrown at them only because of their Muslim identity. Not a single case of Rohingya terror has been established to date. India's refusal to fulfil its obligations under its constitution and international law are culpable enough. Even more distressing is the elevation of strongman lawless cruelty as state policy. Angshuman Choudhury observes that in today's India 'the body of the Muslim outsider, particularly the Bengali-speaking Muslim outsider, emerges as the pest'. He continues that 'this body is the homo sacer, a figure that may not be killed, but is also not worthy of saving. The sovereign has absolute power over this body, which is why it can pluck it out of its home at whim, shackle it, blindfold it, put it into a military transport aircraft, and drop it at sea or a mangrove inhabited by man-eating tigers'. He laments with luminous moral clarity, 'Amid the politics, diplomatese, and legality of these forced returns, we must not lose sight of a more fundamental pathology that they represent—a tragic perversion of India's humanitarian ethos and legacy of hospitality towards the weak and marginalised'. Swami Vivekananda in his historic address to the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago in 1893, referred precisely to this legacy when he declared, 'I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth.' I wonder what he would make of his country today, which mercilessly casts the persecuted and refugees from other religions and countries into detention centres more oppressive than prisons, pushes them across borders with bullets flying on both sides, or throws them into the sea to swim ashore to genocidal persecution. I am grateful for research by Rupali Samuel.
The Star
11-05-2025
- Politics
- The Star
India wages information war to show it has the upper hand against Pakistan
NEW DELHI: While news programmes are broadcast on many Indian television channels, sirens can be heard blaring in the background, forcing anchors to raise their voices as they discuss the latest developments in the conflict between India and Pakistan. This prompted the Home Ministry on Saturday (May 10) to issue an advisory to TV channels to stop using civil defence air raid sirens – meant to capture the viewer's attention – on their programmes. 'The routine use of sirens may likely reduce the sensitivity of civilians towards the air raid sirens,' the advisory cautioned. Behind all the noise, which includes blanket coverage of the conflict steeped in jingoistic and nationalistic rhetoric, is one message: India has the upper hand against Pakistan. This message remains in place even as US President Donald Trump announced on May 10 that India and Pakistan had agreed to a 'full and immediate' ceasefire. In tandem with the strikes and counterstrikes, an information war has been waged within and outside India and Pakistan, not just to show their respective domestic audiences that their governments are taking strong action, but also to win support from those following the hostilities from overseas. In India, this has ranged from pro-government coverage to media bans and advisories, as the government has sought to control the narrative. Social media platform X, on the orders of the Indian government, had started blocking 8,000 accounts in India, leading to accusations of censorship. These include accounts of senior journalists from Kashmir and media websites like Maktoob Media – an independent media outlet that said it focused on human rights and minorities – as well as weekly publications Free Press Kashmir and The Kashmiriyat. 'Blocking entire accounts is not only unnecessary, it (also) amounts to censorship of existing and future content, and is contrary to the fundamental right of free speech,' said X in a statement on May 9. The platform acknowledged the difficult position it faces, stating: 'This is not an easy decision; however, keeping the platform accessible in India is vital to Indians' ability to access information.' Those whose accounts were banned said they had no prior intimation. Maktoob Media said in a statement that it had no knowledge of the reason for the government's action, even as it has continued to cover different aspects of the conflict on its website. Separately, The Wire, a news portal that is often critical of the government, also found its website briefly blocked on May 9, leading to accusations of censorship. The site was back online on May 10 with its founding editor, Mr Siddharth Varadarajan, saying in a statement that it had been unblocked after it removed a specific story related to Pakistan's claims of downing an Indian Rafale jet. India has dismissed the downing of jets as 'misinformation'. Tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours have risen following the killing of 26 people in a terror attack on April 22 in Pahalgam in Kashmir. India has blamed Pakistan for the attack, and launched strikes across the border in the early hours of May 7. Pakistan responded, and the two countries were locked in a cycle of exchanging missile strikes and shelling each other's territories. Amid all this, public opinion has continued to invest confidence in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose image is that of a strong nationalistic leader. Role of the media The question facing the media now is about the kind of role it has played and will play in the information war. Commentators noted that some sections of the media had pushed the narrative of strong government response by backing it with unverified information, inadvertently muddying the government's messaging. Some mainstream TV channels supportive of the Indian government told viewers that the Indian Navy had attacked Karachi – the largest city in Pakistan – and that the Indian military had advanced right up to Islamabad, Pakistan's capital. This proved to be wrong, with Pakistani residents of the cities mentioned sharing footage and creating memes of how life was going on as usual. A day after these claims were widely shared, the Indian Defence Ministry, without naming any media organisations, on May 9 'advised' TV media, among others, against 'live coverage or real-time reporting of defence operations and movement of security forces'. 'Beyond legal compliance, it is a shared moral responsibility to ensure our collective actions do not compromise ongoing operations or the security of our forces,' the advisory said. Analysts noted that keeping the messaging on point amid the information war had remained critical for the Modi government to back up its strong nationalistic stand and possibly even de-escalate tensions with Pakistan. '(News that is wrong) damages India's international reputation. If this was done by social media handles, it would be different. These are mainstream news channels. It could damage the credibility of not just the media, but also the country,' said Chennai-based political analyst Sumanth Raman. 'If the public is told by the media that we have delivered the message to Pakistan, and we have made our point, that is what they will believe. Definitely the media has a role, including in de-escalation,' he added. But this is not the first conflict where sections of the Indian media have waged an information war. In 2019, India launched air strikes against what it said was a terror training camp in Balakot in Pakistan, in retaliation for a suicide bombing in which 40 soldiers were killed in Kashmir. Indian TV channels then, too, whipped up passions, seeking revenge for the killing of the soldiers. The rhetoric has deepened even further this time as India, ahead of the ceasefire on May 10, accused Pakistan of targeting civilians and using high-speed missiles to target its bases. Pakistan, too, accused India of targeting its military airbases, as the two countries continued to exchange claims and counterclaims. Shantanu Gupta, a political analyst and author, maintained this was not the time for critical reportage, saying the media had to put its weight behind the Modi government. 'The narrative is a big part of the conflict. Media is very important because public sentiment is only made by Indian television, however big YouTube or social media has become,' he said. 'Until and unless you find the government is doing something too wrong, this is not the time to create confusion. But yes, sometimes they (television media) go overboard just to justify their argument, or they go wrong,' he acknowledged. In Pakistan, too, the coverage has advanced the government narrative. 'Right now the coverage is all dominated by the government narrative,' said Imtiaz Gul, executive director of the Centre for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad. 'Pakistan has its internal political and economic problems, but the opinion for now has swayed in favour of the government.' Shrinking space for dissent Still, questions remain over whether the media can continue to play its role effectively during times of conflict like this, with critics accusing both governments of permitting little space for criticism in recent years. India and Pakistan have in recent years faced criticism from rights groups for allowing a smaller space for dissent. India has more than 20,000 daily newspapers, about 450 privately owned news channels and around 28 government-owned national and regional channels. Still, it remains to be seen how the ceasefire brokered by the US will be reported, said Delhi-based writer and journalist Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay. 'We have to see how the narrative plays out,' he said, as the media could portray it as 'Modi's victory, even though the US brokered the deal'. - The Straits Times/ANN
Straits Times
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Straits Times
Info war: India leverages media to show it has the upper hand against Pakistan
People watch TV reports of Indian missile strikes on Pakistan in Peshawar, Pakistan, on May 7. PHOTO: EPA-EFE Info war: India leverages media to show it has the upper hand against Pakistan NEW DELHI – While news programmes are broadcast on many Indian television channels, sirens can be heard blaring in the background, forcing anchors to raise their voices as they discuss the latest developments in the conflict between India and Pakistan. This prompted the Home Ministry on May 10 to issue an advisory to TV channels to stop using civil defence air raid sirens – meant to capture the viewer's attention – on their programmes. 'The routine use of sirens may likely reduce the sensitivity of civilians towards the air raid sirens,' the advisory cautioned. Behind all the noise, which includes blanket coverage of the conflict steeped in jingoistic and nationalistic rhetoric, is one message: India has the upper hand against Pakistan. This message remains in place even as US President Donald Trump announced on May 10 that India and Pakistan had agreed to a 'full and immediate' ceasefire. In tandem with the strikes and counterstrikes, an information war has been waged within and outside India and Pakistan, not just to show their respective domestic audiences that their governments are taking strong action, but also to win support from those following the hostilities from overseas. In India, it has ranged from pro-government coverage to media bans and media advisories, as the government has sought to control the narrative. Social media platform X, on the orders of the Indian government, h ad started blocking 8,000 accounts in India, leading to accusations of censorship. This includ es accounts of senior journalists from Kashmir and media websites like Maktoob Media – an independent media outlet that said it focused on human rights and minorities – as well as weekly publications Free Press Kashmir and The Kashmiriyat. 'Blocking entire accounts is not only unnecessary, it (also) amounts to censorship of existing and future content, and is contrary to the fundamental right of free speech,' said X in a statement on May 9. The platform acknowledged the difficult position it faces, stating: 'This is not an easy decision, however keeping the platform accessible in India is vital to Indians' ability to access information.' Those whose accounts were banned said they had no prior intimation. Maktoob Media said in a statement that it had no knowledge of the reason for the government's action, even as it has continued to cover different aspects of the conflict on its website. Separately, The Wire, a news portal that is often critical of the government, also found its website briefly blocked on May 9, leading to accusations of censorship. The site was back online on May 10 with its founding editor, Mr Siddharth Varadarajan, saying in a statement that it had been unblocked after it removed a specific story related to Pakistan's claims of downing an Indian Rafale jet. India has dismissed the downing of jets as 'misinformation'. India has not confirmed the downing of any Indian jets. Tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours have risen following the killing of 26 people in a terror attack April 22 in Pahalgam in Kashmir. India has blamed Pakistan for the attack and launched strikes across the border in the early hours of May 7 . Pakistan responded, and the two countries were locked in a cycle of exchanging missile strikes and shelling each other's territories. Amid all this, public opinion has continued to invest confidence in Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose image is that of a strong nationalistic leader. Role of the media The question facing the media now is about the kind of role it has played and will pla y in the information war. Commentators noted that some sections of the media had pushed the narrative of strong government response by backing it with unverified information, inadvertently muddying the government's messaging. Some mainstream television channels supportive of the Indian government told viewers that the Indian Navy had attacked Karachi – the largest city in Pakistan – and that the Indian military had advanced right up to Islamabad, Pakistan's capital. This proved to be wrong, with Pakistani residents of the cities mentioned sharing footage and creating memes of how life was going on as usual. A day after these claims were widely shared, the Indian defence ministry, without naming any media organisations, on May 9 'advised' television media, among others, against 'live coverage or real-time reporting of defence operations and movement of security forces'. 'Beyond legal compliance, it is a shared moral responsibility to ensure our collective actions do not compromise ongoing operations or the security of our forces,' the advisory said. Analysts noted that keeping the messaging on point amid the information war had remained critical for the Modi government to back up its strong nationalistic stand and possibly even de-escalate tensions with Pakistan . '(Wrong news) damages India's international reputation. If this was done by social media handles, it would be different. These are mainstream news channels. It could damage credibility of not just the media, but also the country,' said Chennai-based political analyst Sumanth Raman. 'If the public is told by the media that we have delivered the message to Pakistan, and we have made our point, that is what they will believe. Definitely the media has a role including in de-escalation,' he added. But this is not the first conflict where sections of the Indian media have waged an information war. In 2019, India launched air strikes against what it said was a terror training camp in Balakot in Pakistan in retaliation for a suicide bombing in which 40 soldiers were killed in Kashmir. Indian television channels then too whipped up passions, seeking revenge for the killing of the soldiers. The rhetoric has deepened even further this time as India ahead of the ceasefire on May 10 accused Pakistan of targeting civilian s and using high-speed missiles to target its bases. Pakistan too accused India of targeting its military air bases as the two countries have continued to exchange claims and counterclaims. Mr Shantanu Gupta, a political analyst and author, maintained this was not the time for critical reportage, saying the media had to put its weight behind the Modi government. 'The narrative is a big part of the conflict. Media is very important because public sentiment is only made by Indian television, however big YouTube or social media has become,' he said. 'Until and unless you find the government is doing something too wrong, this is not the time to create confusion. But yes, sometimes they (television media) go overboard just to justify their argument, or they go wrong,' he acknowledged . In Pakistan too, the coverage has advanced the government narrative. 'Right now the coverage is all dominated by the government narrative,' said Mr Imtiaz Gul, Executive Director of the Center for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad . 'Pakistan has its internal political and economic problems, but the opinion for now has swayed in favour of the government.' Shrinking space for dissent Still, questions remain over whether the media can continue to play its role effectively during times of conflict like this, with critics accusing the government of permitting little space for criticism in recent years. India and Pakistan have in recent years faced criticism from rights groups of allowing a smaller space for dissent. India has over 20,000 daily newspapers, about 450 privately-owned news channels and around 28 government-owned national and regional channels. Still, it remains to be seen how the ceasefire brokered by the United States will be reported, said Delhi-based writer and journalist Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay. 'We have to see how the narrative plays out on how it is Modi's victory, even though the US brokered the deal,' said Mr Mukhopadhyay. . Nirmala Ganapathy is India bureau chief at The Straits Times. She is based in New Delhi and writes about India's foreign policy and politics. Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
The Independent
09-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
India cracks down on independent news websites and Twitter profiles amid ‘information war'
India reportedly blocked access to an independent news website and ordered the removal of Pakistan -linked content across digital platforms in a sweeping clampdown on online information amid growing cross-border tensions. The website of The Wire, a news organisation known for its investigative journalism and critical coverage of the government, became inaccessible across much of the country on Friday. While officials have not issued any public order or statement, internet service providers told The Wire that the site had been blocked following directions from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) under the Information Technology Act, 2000, it said in a statement. The publication said it would challenge the action in court and the move amounted to 'a clear violation of the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press'. In another instance, the X handle of Maktoob Media, another Indian news website, was also withheld. In a statement, X (formerly Twitter) said it has received executive orders from the Indian government to block access to over 8,000 accounts within India. The company said the orders came with threats of 'significant fines and imprisonment of the company's local employees' for non-compliance. 'In most cases, the Indian government has not specified which posts from an account have violated India's local laws,' the company said. 'For a significant number of accounts, we did not receive any evidence or justification to block the accounts.' India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued a separate advisory instructing online intermediaries, including social media platforms and streaming services, to take down all content 'having its origins in Pakistan'. 'In the interest of national security, all OTT platforms, media streaming platforms and intermediaries operating in India are advised to discontinue the web-series, films, songs, podcasts and other streaming media content, whether made available on a subscription based model or otherwise, having its origins in Pakistan with immediate effect,' read the advisory dated 8 May. The advisory did not define what qualified as such content or specify any legal framework under which it was issued. The Indian Ministry of Defence also on Friday asked 'all media channels, digital platforms and individuals' to refrain from 'live coverage or real-time reporting of defence operations and movement of security forces'. 'Disclosure of such sensitive or source-based information may jeopardise operational effectiveness and endanger lives. Past incidents like the Kargil War, 26/11 attacks, and the Kandahar hijacking underscore the risks of premature reporting. As per clause 6(1)(p) of the Cable Television Networks (Amendment) Rules, 2021, only periodic briefings by designated officials are permitted during anti-terror operations. In 1999, India and Pakistan fought a brief but intense conflict in the mountains above Kargil on the Line of Control, the cease-fire line dividing the former kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir. 'All stakeholders are urged to exercise vigilance, sensitivity, and responsibility in coverage, upholding the highest standards in the service of the nation,' the ministry said. The 26/11 attacks refer to the 2008 militant strikes in India's financial capital Mumbai in which over 160 people were killed. In the 1999 Kandahar hijacking of Indian Airlines flight 814 from Kathmandu, India blames Pakistan and Pakistan-based militant groups. The hijacking was resolved after New Delhi freed three Islamist militants, including Masood Azhar, the head of one such group. Lawyer and Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) director Apar Gupta said the government's move to block The Wire was not accompanied by a transparent legal order and appears consistent with a broader pattern of digital censorship. 'The restriction on access to The Wire's website does not emerge from any clear legal order, as it is not being disclosed and there is no public statement which exists on record,' Mr Gupta told The Independent. 'That matches a pattern of web censorship through the IT Rules 2021, where directions for blocking content are not transparently disclosed – either to the public or even to the impacted parties.' He added that a similar case involving the takedown of 4PM News's YouTube channel had reached the Delhi High Court, which has asked the government to respond. IFF also raised concerns about the 8 May advisory, which it said could lead to over-compliance by platforms and remove a wide range of material not connected to misinformation or threats to national security. 'The advisory rests on no clear statutory footing and imposes an indiscriminate, origin-based embargo,' the foundation said in a separate written statement. 'We urge the government to support Indian journalists and fact-checkers and issue content takedowns as a last resort.' The crackdown comes amid an information vacuum fuelled by rising military tensions between India and Pakistan. Television news channels have faced criticism for airing misleading or false footage, including a widely broadcast video claimed to be from India's recent missile strike across the border, which fact-checkers later identified as footage from Israeli airstrikes on Gaza in 2023. Social media platforms have seen a surge in unverified claims, including videos of old explosions, AI-generated imagery and repurposed gaming footage shared as evidence of Pakistani retaliation. The government has not made public which specific content prompted the 8 May advisory, or whether it is tied to any verified disinformation campaigns. With access to some news websites restricted, international platforms facing growing regulatory pressure, and misinformation circulating unchecked on mainstream television and encrypted apps, some observers have raised concerns about the shrinking availability of reliable information for Indian readers during a time of national crisis.
Scroll.in
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Scroll.in
‘Blatant censorship at a critical time': ‘The Wire' says its website blocked by Centre
News outlet The Wire on Friday said that the Union government had blocked access to its English website in India 'in a clear violation of the Constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press'. Internet service providers had said that The Wire's website was 'blocked as per the order of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under the IT Act, 2000', stated the news outlet. 'We protest this blatant censorship at a critical time for India when sane, truthful, fair and rational voices and sources of news and information are among the biggest assets that India has,' it said. 'We are taking all necessary steps to challenge this arbitrary and inexplicable move.' This comes amid escalating tensions and cross-border strikes between India and Pakistan after the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam on April 22. On Thursday, India blocked the social media accounts of at least four other news portals – Maktoob Media, The Kashmiriyat, Free Press Kashmir and the United States-based Muslim. The accounts of the news portals were blocked in response to legal demands by the Indian government, according to social media platforms X and Instagram. The accounts of Maktoob Media, Free Press Kashmir and The Kashmiriyat have been blocked on X, while that of Muslim has been blocked on Instagram. However, the websites of all four news outlets were accessible in India. In the case of The Wire, while the website itself has been blocked, its social media accounts remain operational. Digipub, an association of independent news organisations and journalists, on Friday described the blocking of The Wire's website as a ' blatant attack on press freedom '. 'This is a critical time for the nation and such actions impede rational thinking,' said the association. 'The urgency and horrors of the battle cannot be used as an excuse to silence independent journalism.' Condemning the blocking of the website, Digipub demanded that it be restored immediately. Earlier in the day, a post by X's Global Government Affairs about India's request to block 8,000 accounts in the country was 'withheld'. The unit had said a day ago that the platform had received orders from the Indian government requiring it to block the accounts, 'subject to potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment of the company's local employees'. The orders included demands to block access in India to accounts belonging to international news organisations and prominent X users, it added. The billionaire Elon Musk-led social media platform said that it would withhold the specified accounts in India alone to comply with the orders. 'However, we disagree with the Indian government's demands,' the platform had said. 'Blocking entire accounts is not only unnecessary, it amounts to censorship of existing and future content, and is contrary to the fundamental right of free speech.'
