The charge that Western media is biased against India isn’t new. It has been whispered in Delhi drawing rooms since the Cold War and shouted in protest rallies after every critical BBC or CNN documentary. The pattern feels familiar: when India toes Washington’s line, coverage warms; when it doesn’t, the knives come out.
Back in the early nineties, Mani Shankar Aiyar wrote an article pointing out what many in India already sensed—cozying up to the United States wouldn’t change much. At the time, America’s real priorities were containing the Soviet Union and Iran, and for that Pakistan, with its geography and military ties, was indispensable. The media, following U.S. foreign policy like a faithful shadow, portrayed Pakistan as a partner and India as a problem.
When the global chessboard shifted and Washington needed India as a counterweight to China, suddenly the tone sweetened. Indian democracy, economic growth, and “shared values” became the headlines. The lesson? Western media is rarely a neutral observer. It mirrors the geopolitical needs of its capitals.
A Suspiciously Timed Documentary
Fast forward to today. The BBC’s two-part program scrutinizing Narendra Modi’s government dropped just as India kept hedging on the Ukraine war. Coincidence? Perhaps. But the timing raised eyebrows in Delhi. Even Modi’s critics (and they are legion) wondered aloud if this was less about human rights and more about foreign policy signaling.
I’m no admirer of Modi. Yet the suspicion lingers: is this journalism, or diplomatic nudging dressed up as journalism?
A Kashmir Memory
I remember the mid-1990s when the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Foreign Correspondent ran a report on Kashmir. The framing was stark—India as an occupying army, Kashmiris as peace-loving freedom fighters. Reality was far more complicated.
Yes, Indian forces committed excesses. Nobody denies that. But the insurgency was hardly a Gandhian movement. I lived near Delhi when Hindu families, frightened and desperate, arrived after being driven out of their ancestral homes in the Valley. The threat was blunt: leave or die. Judges, prosecutors, policemen who dared act were assassinated. Even Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, then a cabinet minister, saw his daughter kidnapped and exchanged for militants.
None of this nuance appeared in the ABC’s telling. A bank employee turning up dead? Vanished from the record. Doctors threatened, civil servants executed? Omitted. What viewers saw instead was a morality play—evil occupiers, noble rebels. Such simplifications didn’t just mislead; they deepened mistrust between communities, feeding the rise of Hindu nationalism in the years that followed.
Manufactured Martyrs
The pattern isn’t confined to India. After 9/11, even before the dust had settled, the U.S. media zeroed in on Osama bin Laden. Evidence was circumstantial at best, as scholars like Noam Chomsky reminded anyone who would listen. Yet the coverage turned him into the face of terror, a global villain—ironically also a martyr figure for those inclined to jihad.
Here lies the danger. When media outlets serve state interests too neatly, they don’t just inform; they manufacture legends, enemies, and myths that outlive facts. Bin Laden is gone, but the mythology Western headlines helped inflate still inspires militants today.
Beyond Neutrality
Caitlin Johnstone recently wrote about the U.S. alliance openly coordinating an “information war” against China. Her point wasn’t shocking—most Indians could only shrug. Of course the narrative is managed. Of course “manufacturing consent,” as Chomsky put it decades ago, is now an explicit strategy. The only novelty is that they no longer bother hiding it.
Western journalists will bristle at the charge of bias. They will cite editorial independence, brave correspondents, fact-checking desks. But anyone watching closely can see the rhythm. When India is useful, headlines glow. When India resists, the criticism sharpens. The story, it seems, is less about India than about who benefits in Washington, London, or Canberra.
And that, perhaps, is the truest bias of all.
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