Daily Times

A Brussels-based NGO committed to combating disinformation against the European Union has unearthed a 15-year-old operation run by an Indian entity that used about 750 fake media outlets to launch an anti-Pakistan campaign globally .The report released on last Wednesday said the disinformation network run by the Srivastava Group, a New Delhi-based organisation, was designed primarily to “discredit Pakistan internationally” and influence decision-making at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the European Parliament. For years, Islamabad has accused New Delhi of orchestrating a hybrid warfare against Pakistan, which relies on a disinformation campaign to undermine Islamabad at international forums. The European revelations have endorsed Pakistan’s suspicion about India’s devilish designs.

The ‘EU DisinfoLab’ is mainly focused on unearthing some sophisticated disinformation campaigns — targeting the EU, its member states, core institutions and core values. "It is the largest network, we have exposed," said Alexandre Alaphilippe, executive director of EU DisinfoLab, which undertook the investigation and published an extensive report on Wednesday, the BBC reported. The EU DisinfoLab’s investigative report, titled “Indian Chronicles,” narrated how the name of Martin Schulz, former president of the European Parliament, was misused. “It seemed he was now heading Canners International, an NGO dedicated to the promotion of…food in cans. “We soon found that the NGO he was supposedly leading officially ceased to exist in 2007 and was now regularly speaking at the UN Human Rights Council [UNHRC] to slam Pakistan,” the watchdog said. According to the said report, India has had 750 fake news outlets in 116 countries- thereby majorly committing impersonation of the EU institutions.

In its malicious obsession to malign Pakistan via its media campaign both domestically and internationally, the Indian media have lowered the quality of news reporting and hence, the Indian media no longer adequately performs the primary functions it is meant to

In early October, the European External Action Service’s East StratCom (the EU Disinformation Task Force) revealed that – eptoday.com – the website of a self-proclaimed magazine for the European Parliament in Brussels – had been relaying/republishing a large amount of news directly from Russia Today and Voice of America. Among this syndicated content, the said network released a large number of articles and op-eds related to minorities in Pakistan as well as other India-related matters.  EP Today is managed by Indian stakeholders, with ties to a large network of think tanks, NGOs, and companies from the Srivastava Group. We also found that the IP address of the Srivastava Group is also home to the obscure online media “New Delhi Times” and the International Institute for Non-Aligned Studies (IINS), which are all based at the same address in New Delhi, India. The DisinfoLab investigation found that about ten long-defunct NGOs and industry-related organisations were incarnated and used to lobby diplomats at international forums, especially the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

Reportedly, the Commission to Study the Organisation of Peace (CDOP), an NGO that became inactive in the 1970s, was reactivated in the mid-2000s to organise events on the sidelines of UN sessions and send representatives to panel discussions. Those Indian groups have also been responsible for putting up Free Balochistan posters across Geneva in 2017. India often highlights the human rights violations in Balochistan in order to deviate attention from its own atrocities in Kashmir. Likewise, the International Club for Peace Research (ICPR), another dormant NGO–focussing on Africa– was resurrected in 2009 when it started to appear at the UNHRC sessions where Pakistan was targeted.  It was this so-called NGO which in 2012 issued a press release, distributed by Indian news agency DNA, demanding enquiry into genocide in Bangladesh by Pakistani Army.

Against this backdrop, FM Shah Mahmood Qureshi has justifiably called upon the United Nations and the European Union to take notice of and initiate a probe into a massive disinformation and propaganda campaign being "run by India" to promote anti-Pakistan sentiment on an international level. "Today, India is manipulating and misusing the international system for its own nefarious designs," Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said at a press conference, adding that the Indian government was funding the network. Qureshi called on the UN and UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to immediately investigate and de-list "10 fake NGOs created by India to malign Pakistan.

The media in India has not only been playing a disproportionate role in shaping public perceptions domestically but also internationally. Not surprisingly, in sharp contrast to the immense financial power and political clout of the Indian media; it yet stands indifferent to the core values/news ethics such as—quality, reliability and authenticity hence, there is no diversity and pluralism,–reflecting shallowness in reporting and comment on serious issues, there seems a systematic violation of elementary norms of responsible journalism. Over the years, in its malicious obsession to malign Pakistan via its media campaign both domestically and internationally, the Indian media have lowered the quality of news reporting and hence, the Indian media no longer adequately performs the primary functions it is meant to. "Over the last few years – especially after Prime Minister Narendra Modi won the general election of 2014 – the Indian mainstream media has allowed itself to be undermined by the transcendent political power that he represents, “Pamela Philipose, an ombudsman for The Wire, a media outlet, told DW.

Arguably, despite rapid globalisation and the opening up of Indian society and culture to international influences, the Indian media remains extremely insular and unjustifiably polarized against Pakistan. The Indian media now face a serious crisis of credibility. If it does not reform itself, it will find its greatest asset getting rapidly devalued and eventually vanishing. The Reporters Without Borders' annual press freedom index, released on April 21, has ranked India at 142 among 180 countries. Titled 2020 World Press Freedom Index, the report says that the Indian media reeling under a Hindu nationalist government. Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), or Reporters Without Borders, is a non-profit organisation. In its report, the RSF attributes India's ranking to the Narendra Modi government "tightening" its grip on the media, and pressuring it to "toe the Hindu nationalist government's line".

As glaringly witnessed by the Balakot issue in February 2019 that the Reuters and some other international media challenged the Modi government’s line with satellite imagery as evidence; but the damage, once again, was done, as most Indians had already been sold New Delhi’s version of events. In October this year, the mainstream media outlets in India along with some popular social media accounts have been abuzz with talks about civil war happening in Pakistan. However, experts believe this to be a disinformation campaign that grossly misrepresents an ongoing political crisis in the country.

In response, Pakistani media challenged the Indian narrative via fact checking as Indian social media with photoshopped images had supposed violence happening in Pakistan. Succinctly, it appears that India’s malicious propaganda campaign against Pakistan is nothing but New Delhi‘s clear reflection of the devil’s advocate role of the Indian media to malign Pakistan politically, socially and economically in order to achieve its ulterior domestic and global ends.