Western Media Bias: An Indian Perspective
The western media has always been biased against India. In the early nineties, Mani Shankar Aiyar wrote an article detailing why no amount of sucking up to the US will help India, because the prime concern of the US is containing Soviet Union and Iran, and Pakistan is strategically located to help the US in the regard. The western media has always deferred to the US government in such foreign policy matters. Sure enough when the geo-political situation changed and the US decided to take India’s help, the news about India became very positive. The latest BBC two part program criticising the Modi government in India is essentially the western media dropping hints to the Modi government that they are not toeing the line with regards to the Ukraine war. I am no fan of Modi but the timing of the program is rather suspicious.
For a first hand instance regarding the utter bias of the main stream western media, I can cite the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s Foreign Correspondent’s report on Kashmir in 1995/96.
The ABC portrayed India as an occupying army that was hell bent on tormenting the local Kashmiris. That there were excesses was not in doubt but to swing the other side and say the Kashmiri insurgents were a bunch of peace loving soldiers fighting for basic human rights is far from the truth. I lived closed to New Delhi when there was an exodus of Hindus from Kashmir coming to Delhi and neighbouring states. The insurgents went to Hindu homes and asked them to vacate their ancestral homes. If not they would be killed. The government could not help because there was a complete breakdown of law and order. Policemen, judges and public prosecutors who tried to arrest such those responsible were either killed themselves or in some cases their family members. The daughter of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed was kidnapped and the insurgents demanded the release of convicted criminals as the ransom. Mufti was then a cabinet minister in the central government and the government agreed. For all their Islamic brotherhood rhetoric the insurgents had no compunction in threatening to take the life of one of their own kin, a young doctor in this case. There were other instances of kidnapping too that the ABC failed to mention. In another “minor” instance a State Bank of India employee was found dead a few months after he started working in Kashmir. There was no official confirmation that he was killed. But the government of India usually downplays such incidents because it will lead to anti-Muslim riots in other parts of India. That attitude partly explains the rise of the Hindu nationalist party which claims that the then Congress government was engaging in politics of appeasement.
A few years later 9/11 happened. At that time Al Queda claimed innocence. But the western media taking cue from the US, blamed it on Osama bin Laden. Noam Chomsky claims that bin Laden would not have been convicted in any criminal court in the USA given the evidence available at that time. Even now the only evidence we have is, bin Laden gloating over the fall of the twin towers. In all probability the real conspirators behind the scene have not been caught. Bin Laden has been killed but Al Queda can thank the western media for making him a brilliant jihadi martyr in the minds of so many Muslims worldwide.
On a personal note, this article started as a response to Caitlin Jonhstone’s article: US Power Alliance Says It’s Coordinating An “Information War” Against China. My initial thought was, ‘Tell me something I don’t already know Caitlin.’ I guess her main contribution is that they they are not even trying to hide the fact that they are manufacturing consent.
