Indian media spreading disinformation and fake news is not a new phenomenon. They are known for it globally since long. This is an old Indian habit.
The World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Risk Report also ranked India at the top for the risk of misinformation and disinformation.
Back in 2020, a Brussels-based NGO working to combat disinformation against the European Union unearthed a 15-year-old operation run by an Indian entity that used hundreds of fake media outlets and the identity of a dead professor to target Pakistan, according to a report published in AlJajeera website on December 11, 2020.
The EU DisinfoLab in its report, Indian Chronicles: deep dive into a 15-year operation targeting the EU and United Nations to serve Indian interests, termed this as the ‘largest network’ of disinformation they have exposed so far.
The report said the disinformation network run by the Srivastava Group, a New Delhi-based entity, was designed primarily to “discredit Pakistan internationally” and influence decision-making at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the European Parliament.
The report said in order to “undermine Pakistan internationally”, the network “resurrected dead NGOs” at the UN, impersonated the EU and laundered content produced by fake media to real media, and reached millions in South Asia and across the world.
A European Union-based human rights activist even called for institution of a lawsuit against the Indian government to prevent recurrence of such propaganda, describing the EU DisinfoLab’s revelations about the Indian network involved in a fake news campaign as “enormously damaging.”
“This should have consequences for Indian government that has the final responsibility. The Indian government should be held accountable for this in the court,” said Vermaut, an official member of the International Alliance for the Defence of Rights and Freedoms, an NGO with participatory status to the United Nations ECOSOC committee.
BBC reported on December 16, 2019 that a global network of pro-Indian fake websites and think-tanks is aimed at influencing decision-making in Europe, researchers say.
The co-ordinated network of 265 sites operates across 65 countries, according to a report by EU Disinfo Lab, a Brussels-based NGO. The researchers traced the websites to an Indian company, Srivastava Group. The network was also found to involve groups responsible for anti-Pakistan lobbying events in Europe.
There’s no evidence it is linked to India’s government. But researchers believe the network’s purpose is to disseminate propaganda against India’s neighbour and rival Pakistan. Both countries have long sought to control the narrative against each other.
Pakistan also accused India of funding a long running disinformation campaign against it and said it would raise the matter in global forums, a report published in Dawn newspaper on December 11, 2020 said.
In making its claim that India attempted to manipulate international bodies through fake news websites and organisations, Pakistan’s foreign minister cited a report by European non-government organisation EU Disinfo Lab, the Dawn report said.
The report highlighted a network of hundreds of fake media outlets and organisations that it said have pushed a pro-India agenda in the European Union (EU) and United Nations (UN) bodies to discredit the country’s rivals, in particular Pakistan.
“Today, India is manipulating and misusing the international system for its own nefarious designs,” Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah MehmoodQureshi said at a press conference, adding that the Indian government was funding the network.
Srivastava Group had come under the spotlight in 2019 for arranging a visit of far-right members of the European Parliament to the Indian-administered Kashmir after it was stripped of its special status and put under a security and communications lockdown.
The report has named Srivastava Group – a shadowy business conglomerate – and Asian News International (ANI), India’s largest video news agency and a partner of Reuters news agency, as the prime players of the operation.
In 2019, the researchers of EU DisinfoLab had uncovered 265 pro-Indian sites operating across 65 countries, and traced them back to the New Delhi-based Srivastava Group.
The researchers said they had “uncovered an entire network of coordinated UN-accredited NGOs promoting Indian interests and criticising Pakistan repeatedly. We could tie at least 10 of them directly to the Srivastava family, with several other dubious NGOs pushing the same messages.”
“These UN-accredited NGOs work in coordination with non-accredited think-tanks and minority-rights NGOs in Brussels and Geneva. Several of them – like the European Organization for Pakistani Minorities (EOPM), Baluchistan House and the South Asia Democratic Forum (SADF) – were directly but opaquely created by the Srivastava group,” it said.
In Geneva, the EU DisinfoLab report said, these think-tanks and NGOs are in charge of lobbying, organising demonstrations and speaking during news conferences and UN side events. They were repeatedly given the floor at the UN on behalf of the accredited organisations, the report said.
