Backstory | India’s Media Betrayed the Country In a Time of War, Here’s How
It has been almost a month since the Pahalgam attack on Indian tourists and ten days since the Indian military struck nine bases in Pakistan, leading to a tense, three-day exchange of fire between India and Pakistan. A quick accounting of the mainstream media’s role during this tempestuous period may be in order at this juncture.
The first aspect that emerges frontally from such an exercise is a paradox. An institution that paints itself as patriotic, which is the first to call out the “anti-Indianness” of its peers, has in fact betrayed the country conclusively time and again during this entire period, doing irreparable damage to India’s image in the process.
What also emerges is the fact that in the end, after the shouting stopped, it was not the interests of the country that really mattered for this powerful section of the media, but the advertising spin-offs. TRPs can be tyrants, they can smash every bit of love for Mother India right out of the park.
Could it be, then, that the adoration they profess for their country is actually an adoration for the government in power, which is actually an adoration for the potential spin-offs that power can engender in terms of both advertising support, state largesse and government protections?
Finally, the reportage of this period, especially of news television, only confirmed that time-honoured journalistic norms like accuracy, verifiability, fact checking, the seeking of trusted sources and the correcting of mistakes, have been replaced by rumour, speculation, spectacle and crude jingoism.
So let us consider some of the ways in which India’s mainstream media betrayed the country in this time of war, or near-war.
First, in their excitement of the chase; of dealing Pakistan a knock-out punch, their coverage provided hints of military manoeuvres and locational data to the extent that the Government of India had to issue an advisory urging the media to refrain from live coverage or real-time reporting.
This had some unintended comedic moments as a former additional director general of the Border Security Force, S.K. Sood, alludes to in a piece for The India Cable. He was part of a panel in which the anchor first introduced his correspondent as someone who is reporting “from somewhere near Barmer” and then proceeded to ask him: “Please tell us what you’re seeing – without revealing where you are.”
This was news, unverified and unverifiable, scripted by Bollywood, complete with sound effects and images of aircraft circling the screen. The more fake a report was, the greater seemed to be the padding.
Fact-checking organisations were the only ones providing real-time perspective amidst this free-disinformation-for-all scenario. AltNews discovered how footage from Gaza showing hijab-clad women fleeing after a bombardment was used to supposedly capture the impacts of Operation Sindoor.
According to BOOM, on May 8 the words ‘INS Vikrant in Karachi’ started flashing on the screens of news channels, with many adding a ‘breaking news’ alert to the proceedings. What followed was a video claiming to be a naval attack on Karachi. Before long, reports emerged of Karachi Port having been destroyed: “Zee News, Aaj Tak, Lokmat Hindi and News Nation made the fake claim with India Today dedicating an entire segment titled, ‘Indian Navy attacks Karachi for the first time since 1971’”.
It went on to say, “News outlets like CNN News18 and OneIndia and the extreme right-wing outlet Sudarshan News reported that the Indian forces had moved to attacking Islamabad. All the while showing graphics of tanks and blast and air strikes and missiles cutting through the screen. They soon added another fake piece to this, claiming drones from India had struck Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's house with Zee News adding ‘Sharif has surrendered’.”
The intent to disseminate patently fake news was patent. As AltNews reported, the Gaza footage was shared immediately by many on X. One user, @janardanspeak, added text that roughly translated as, “He who has entered your house and dug your grave is Modiji, sitting on the throne in Delhi.” In other words, it suggested that the people shown struggling to recover from a bombardment were Pakistanis.
According to the AltNews report, janardanspeak’s tweet received 6,46,600 views, indicating the oceanic reach of lies primed as special purpose vehicles!
What is also interesting to note is that such coverage sowed cross-border confusion as well. The Economic Times on May 9 carried an interesting story about how the Karachi Port Trust put out a tweet that its facility was damaged from India’s military strikes, only to later deny the report, saying that it was a victim to a hacker.
Such deceit is supposedly instrumentalised for the “patriotic” purpose of claiming victory over the enemy – and of course similar attempts were being made on the other side of the border as well.
But in times when hostilities between two nuclear-armed combatants have reached an apogee, disinformation of this kind can set off an ever-widening cycle of confusion that could cloud strategic thinking on the conduct of war and have hugely detrimental consequences.
It also projects to international audiences the image of Ugly Indians who can stoop to any amount of chicanery in order to emerge powerful in their own eyes. They range from an Arnab Goswami, off-leash, taking on the US president for his intervention (Arnab’s little number had to be hurriedly taken down by the authorities who usually allow him a long rope) to crazies allowed to give vent to their darkest fantasies in news studios.
The world, unfortunately, is not naive. An analyst in The Economist minced no words over “feral news anchors” who end up working against the country’s interests. The conclusion was damning: “If one job of a nationalist media is to take the state’s message to its people and the world, TV news failed miserably. India has emerged looking like an aggressor instead of a victim.”
The coverage of Operation Sindoor was a strike on the credibility of the Indian media, particularly television news. Its monstrously misplaced, irresponsible commentary has ensured that nobody in their right mind would seek it as the primary source of information. Or, indeed, seek it at all.
Perhaps, before putting together all-party delegations to take the Indian narrative to foreign shores, India would be better served to have its television news media do a spot of self-introspection and issue a mea culpa for having let down the country at a time when it most needed a credible witness, documenter and analyst.
Also read: In India’s TV War Rooms, the ‘Generals’ Were Loud, Facts Optional, and the Enemy Always in Retreat
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Ten years of not forgetting: The Wire’s birth decade
The most striking feature of The Wire’s celebrations of its tenth anniversary of existence was the irrepressible brio of its younger cohort. Over this past decade a group of professionals have emerged from The Wire stable who don’t just speak truth to power but appear to hugely enjoy the opportunity to do so; just as they do taking on obstreperous unclejis everywhere, whether they reside in WhatsApp groups or on Raisina Hill.
They may not be paid as well as their counterparts or gain face time with the prime minister or even get a chance to launch missiles against Pakistan from their studio desks, but they have something invaluable that those others don’t: freedom of speech and expression. It comes with The Wire territory, this independence of thought.
After all, how many young reporters in this country have their editors-in-chief quote Faiz at them: ‘bol ki ab lab azaad hain tere’ (‘Speak! while your tongue is still free’), or urge young colleagues to press the unmute button in Naya Bharat.
Such words are especially important at a time when Naya Bharat is expending a great deal of bureaucratic muscle and energy to keep that mute button firmly pressed down. Innumerable laws, rules, regulations, subordinate legislation – each one designed to shackle digital media – are crowding the firmament today.
The seamless and opaque manner in which this news portal was blocked last week provided a glimpse of the power of the censorious leviathan. But, as Siddharth Varadarajan put it in his address to those gathered in Delhi to celebrate this epochal decade, “We are still here, undaunted. Still publishing and reaching millions!”
Many have commented on a curious parallel: The Wire emerged within a few months of the inauguration of the Modi era. But at the time of its inception it may have been difficult for its three founding editors, M.K. Venu, Sidharth Bhatia and Siddharth Varadarajan, to anticipate all the challenges that an independent media start-up would have to face. They probably had only an abstract idea of what the news portal should be. But what they were clear about was what they did not want it to be.
An interesting piece of writing, which was dug out, framed and showcased during the anniversary celebrations, provided ample evidence of this. It was the first piece published in The Wire and began like this: “Instead of the traditional models of family-owned, corporate-funded and controlled or advertising-driven newspapers and TV channels, can we imagine the media as a joint venture in the public sphere between journalists, readers and a concerned citizenry?”
As The Wire enters the second decade of its existence, that original dream is intact: it remains a joint venture between the portal, its patrons and the public.
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Experiences of journalists left to face criminal charges
An important report, ‘Pressing Charges: A Study of Criminal Cases Against Journalists Across States in India’, put together by the National Law University Delhi, the Columbia Law Human Rights Institute and the Clooney Foundation For Justice, did the hard work of analysing the data of criminal cases brought against journalists. This has never been attempted earlier.
Many important patterns emerged from a dataset of 423 criminal cases registered against 427 journalists across the country between the years 2012 and 2022, comprising 624 incidents of criminalisation. It indicates trends that we may have known, but they now come backed by hard data.
They include the fact that criminal law is routinely used against journalists for just doing what their jobs entail; that 40% of those in the dataset faced arrests; that those most impacted were from small cities and towns writing for local publications in local languages, including Hindi; that many of these offences potentially carried a sentence of five years of imprisonment; that the laws employed are so vague and overbroad that they can be easily weaponised against the media, as indeed they have been.
One important section in this report carried the actual, if anonymised, voices of those enmeshed in this dystopian scenario and the impacts that criminalisation has had on their lives. It has created an ever-present sense of anxiety, not just at a personal but family level; a rise in self-censorship; an inability to function professionally; financial hardships of all kinds including the inability to bear the expenses for legal redress.
Those who have served time in jail often emerge with their spirit shattered and find it difficult to recover completely. Many are haunted by anxieties of police officers turning up at their front door. The fear of their personal space being violated or being subject to physical attacks remains at all times.
There are, besides, nasty experiences like lawyers not willing to fight the case pro bono because of the caste of the individual involved; finding themselves “forgotten” by their colleagues and the journalistic fraternity as a whole; having devices like cellphones and laptops – essential for their profession – confiscated by the police.
Long after they have been released they continue to be stigmatised, trolled and overlooked for available jobs.
A minuscule number were fortunate enough to have the support of their employers and colleagues, but these lucky few were inevitably located in the bigger cities and had more prominent public profiles.
The concluding section of this report carries the voices of those who have gone through experiences difficult to put in words. The quotations tell their stories eloquently and should prompt us to redouble our efforts at the professional level to battle state repression against journalists (excerpts):
- “I spent nearly five to fifteen lakhs on legal fees just for my bail at the High Court, and another ten lakhs for the trial.”
- “My freelance work dried up, forcing me to sell my house.”
- “My digital devices were seized and later returned in a damaged condition”
- “At that point, I had felt that I should not have written the report at all. As the cases dragged on with no resolution, and I had to endure jail…”
- “My family felt so tortured due to my absence, especially my little children…”
- “I have never recovered from what I went through…”
- “This pushed me to leave journalism…”
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Readers write in…
A welcome ceasefire
Saravanamuttu and Sushil Pyakurel, bureau members of the South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR), write in on behalf of SAHR members:
“SAHR commends the ceasefire agreed upon by the governments of India and Pakistan on 10 May 2025 at 17:00hrs (India Standard Time). This decisive and meaningful decision towards de-escalation is most welcomed after the military action ‘Operation Sindoor’ commenced in the early hours of 7 May 2025. SAHR learns that the Director Generals of Military Operations (DGMOs) have had their first round of communication on 12 May 2025 as announced.
“SAHR further appreciates the rigorous efforts made by the friendly nations, the international community and international and regional organizations and people with a great commitment towards peace and harmony in the two countries as well as in the region. SAHR firmly advocates the immediate initiation of bilateral talks of critical importance between India and Pakistan to sustain this move for de-escalation.”
Decoding the new pope
Jayaram draws on recent literature on Pope Leo XIV to present a composite portrait of the man:
“Cardinal Robert Prevost, previously a Bishop in Peru, has been elected Pope and he has chosen to name himself Leo XIV and that is a tremendous signal of hope for two reasons: One, he succeeds Pope Francis (Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio) who had named himself after Saint Francis of Assisi and who had made waves with several liberal initiatives. By naming himself after Pope Leo XIII, the incumbent raises hopes of a left-leaning Papacy. Leo XIII became known as 'the workers' Pope', as, through his 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum, he spoke of rights to fair wages, working conditions, and trade union rights.
“In his first Urbi et Orbi (To the Town and the World) address to the thousands of clergy and laity gathered at St Peter's Square, the new Pope stressed the need to build bridges, thus indicating that he would carry forward the good work of Pope Francis. ‘Together, we must look for ways to be a missionary Church, a Church that builds bridges and encourages dialogue, a Church ever open to welcoming, like this Square with its open arms, all those who are in need of our charity, our presence, our readiness to dialogue and our love.’
“Will he also keep speaking up for the Palestinians and especially against the plight of the people of Gaza as Pope Francis consistently did? It seems he will.”
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Wrong tag
Karthik K is a careful, if unsympathetic, reader of The Wire. He has a question:
“Why is the article, ‘Why RSS Talks of Kings, Subjects and Duties: 5 Reasons Behind the Rhetoric’ (May 5) tagged under ‘communalism’? Is there absolutely zero editorial scrutiny?!”
My response: Agree. The piece should have been tagged under ‘Politics’.
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Why does the Big Media black out Gulfisha?
Santosh Kumar of Delhi writes on Gulfisha Fatima:
“We never see any report on Gulfisha Fatima in our mainline English newspapers, although Umar Khalid makes an appearance once in a blue moon. A journo friend informs me that UP resident Roop Rekha Verma, the elderly scholar, who volunteered to stand guarantee for Siddique Kappan, recently campaigned for Gulfisha in Lucknow. That takes some courage. But have you ever read about that in our newspapers? No.
“Thank you and the Wire.in very much for sparing a thought for Gulfisha and reminding us about her existence in Modi's new India.”
Write to ombudsperson@thewire.in.
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