Qaisar Mansoor
A research conducted by the BBC in India has found that the rising tide of nationalism in the country is a crucial driver of fake news, and vice versa. Eroding trust in mainstream news media has pushed users to spread stories from alternative sources, which are often incorrect.
Strategic lying is an official policy of statecraft of Indian leadership and Godi media is the menifestation instrument of BJP government. Its principal and matter of fact stated the aim is to peddle anti-Pak agenda and act as BJP/RSS mouth piece.
The purpose of BJP propaganda is not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to misguide. After the exposure of ‘India’s Fake News Factory’ by the EU DisinfoLab, it was believed that there would at least be a brief halt in the production of bogus content by the extremist Hindu State or some change in tactics. Indian media has a long story of creating fake news which have been refuted repeatedly. Several international investigations concluded that a lot of disinformation was spread “under the control of Indian officials or government agencies”.
The fact-check website ‘BOOM’ carried out the survey of Indian media trends of spreading fake content revealed that India is a hotbed of fake news and misinformation, and data shows that it is exponentially rising. After scrutinizing 9,657 instances of misinformation originating from 138 countries between 2020- 2021, IFLA Journal found that India produced the largest amount of social media misinformation. Journalism in India is facing a serious crisis.
The quality of Indian journalism is getting worse day by day, as evidenced by the fact India ranks 142 among 180 countries in the index compiled by an NGO, Reporters without Borders. Indian Freelance journalist Aveek Sen incidentally unearthed a former Military Intelligence (MI) officer Colonel Dibya Satpathy along with Major Neelam “Neel” Kumari alias “The Skin Doctor” and Major Gaurav Arya, who had been directing information operations campaigns against Pakistan at the behest of both RAW and the BJP. A BBC research “Beyond Fake News “carried out in November 2018 indicated that the rising tide of nationalism in India is driving ordinary citizens to spread fake news. In shinning India, grave HRVs against minorities; lynching, rape, looting and arson are the order of day.
Not a single day goes by without the news of state sponsored and patronized violence, India is on a fast track to become a nation of “Zombies”, tearing apart each other.
