Misinfo for Israel, Made in India
In the days following the incursion of the armed group Hamas into Israel, a flood of videos and photographs purporting to depict the conflict has inundated social media. This has made it increasingly challenging for observers worldwide to differentiate between fact and fiction.
On the ground in the besieged Gaza Strip, the recent upsurge in violence has exacted a devastating toll. Between October 7th and 24th, over 2,900 children tragically lost their lives, accounting for roughly 40% of the total death toll, which has now surpassed 7,000.
However, amidst this conflict, there's a less-discussed casualty common to most wars – the truth.
As the conflict continues, a torrent of disinformation, facilitated by the unchecked flow on social media, seems to be exacerbating hostility towards Palestinians and fueling Islamophobia. Experts who closely monitor the global web of false information quickly noted that within hours of the Hamas attack on October 7, social media platforms were inundated with both support for Israel and fake news.
Muhammad Zubair, a fact-checking expert based in Bangalore, told The Atlantic that the scale of misinformation was horrific and unimaginable. He recounted scouring the internet for propaganda and fake news an hour after midnight that day, witnessing a significant number of misleading posts on Indian social media.
Zubair wasn't the only one in his field taken aback by the sheer scale of this rapidly developing assault on truth. Several observers noted that verified accounts on X, formerly known as Twitter, were promoting misleading information that portrayed Palestinians as the aggressors.
Megha Bahree, a journalist working for Al Jazeera, reported that the top 10 fake news posts on X related to the Israel-Hamas conflict originated from or were spread by users in India. Each of these posts, according to her latest article for the Doha-based media network, garnered millions of views.
To gain a better understanding of how political narratives about the conflict were being shaped, Bahree turned to an assessment of India's social media landscape conducted by the Delhi-based Narrative Research Lab (NRL). In a review of 4,316 tweets, 2,200 of which mentioned the Israel-Hamas conflict, the NRL revealed that a majority of the posts favored Israel. Citing Sarabjot Singh, the lab's co-founder, Al Jazeera reported that over 1,250 tweets supported Israel, while around 250 expressed pro-Palestinian sentiments. The lab also examined two hashtags, "#IstandwithIsrael" and "#IsraelPalestineWar." While the former was widely used on a global scale, the lab identified a "significant" presence of Indian accounts using it.
On an official level, too, India has been supportive of Israel without any mention of what is unfolding in Palestine. Shortly after the attack on October 7, India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, was among the first world leaders to express support for Israel. On X, he said, "Deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel. Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour."
A deeper analysis of the extensive social media landscape reveals that in recent weeks, Indian right-wing accounts, often featuring the Indian flag alongside the Israeli one, have actively voiced strong online support for Israel. These accounts have also emerged as significant sources for disseminating anti-Palestine disinformation, much of which has been debunked by BOOM, one of India's most reputable fact-checking services.
Suresh Chavhanke, the editor-in-chief of Sudarshan News, a right-wing channel, is among those accounts. Chavhanke shared a clip on X showing an Israeli representative tearing up a 20-page United Nations report documenting human rights violations. It's worth noting that this particular clip is two years old. Chavhanke and numerous other verified accounts have propelled false reports to unprecedented levels of virality.
In one case, an account based in India started sharing a video alleging the abduction of young girls as sex slaves by a "Palestinian" fighter. However, it appears that the video was more likely footage from a school trip to Jerusalem. Despite its relatively low quality, a closer examination conducted by Al Jazeera reveals girls engaged in happy conversations and using their phones.
Similarly, another video circulated falsely showed Hamas kidnapping a Jewish baby. This clip received over a million views in a single post. Collectively, the top misleading tweets generated more than 3 million impressions on X and are unrelated to any kidnapping incident or events in Gaza during this recent episode of violence. Many social media posts from India on other platforms have even advocated for the annihilation of Gaza in Hindi.
Historians who have been examining this situation believe that India has undergone significant transformation in recent times. One contributing factor to this shift is the diminishing memory of English colonialism. Concurrently, under the Modi government, attempts have been made to portray the Mughals, India’s former rulers and Muslims as the historical colonizers. A Delhi-based historian, who preferred to remain anonymous, explained that the global community will have to grapple with the evolving mindset of India's Hindu majority. Unfortunately, they are being made to believe that Muslims at home and everywhere are a source of trouble. “Given how the people of India are being brainwashed, it will naturally be challenging to believe that the Palestinians are innocent,” he told the Express Tribune via email.
India and Israel
Over half a century ago, India became the first non-Arab nation to acknowledge the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the "sole and legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people, consistent with its history of support. However, that has changed since Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014. Three years into his term, the right-wing leader made history as the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel. This marked a significant turning point in the relationship between these two nations.
“Since then, the political landscape in India has shifted from "a predominantly pro-Palestine environment to a complete reversal, now entirely aligned with the Israeli stance," noted Dr. Talat Wizarat, former chairperson of the Department of International Relations at the University of Karachi.
To explain the shift in India's policy, which until 2014 was fairly neutral, Dr. Wizarat pointed out that both Israel and India have colonized land belonging to Muslims. She added that Hindu nationalists and Zionists have reached a point of ideological convergence. According to Dr. Wizarat, Hindutva assigns responsibility to Muslims worldwide for various issues and acts of terrorism. She elaborated that both Zionists and Hindutva share a common anti-Muslim and anti-Islam stance.
She emphasized that both align with the United States, follow similar operational methods, share the same worldview, and employ similar policies to suppress Muslim communities in Kashmir and Palestine. “Their methods of persecution and colonization are remarkably alike,” the Karachi-based expert added.
Wizarat noted that Modi draws inspiration from Benjamin Netanyahu's playbook and adopts similar tactics in the persecution of Palestinians. She added, "Well, short of bombing Kashmir, Modi has applied all of it." She expressed her surprise at the disconnect between Indians, who have endured the cruelty of colonialism, and the plight of the people of Gaza, who have borne the brunt of settler colonialism imposed by Israel.
Hindutva’s support
At this point in time, the BJP-led government in New Delhi is seen as having a closer alignment with Israel, and its main supporter, the United States. Consequently, the deliberate targeting of pro-Palestine demonstrations within India, a nation that prides itself as the world's largest democracy, doesn't come as a surprise. For instance, according to an Al Jazeera report, a week after the Gaza assault began, police in Hamirpur district of India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, were seeking Muslim scholars Atif Chaudhary and Suhail Ansari. Their alleged offense was sharing a WhatsApp display photo that read: "I stand with Palestine." The two men were charged with promoting enmity between social groups. Ansari, according to media reports, is currently under arrest, while Chaudhary is evading the police. In the same state, which is governed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, four students from Aligarh Muslim University were booked by the police for staging a pro-Palestine march on campus a day after the Gaza assault began on October 7.
However, when the Hindu far-right group Bajrang Dal organized a pro-Israel march in the same city of Aligarh, where they chanted slogans such as "Down with Palestine, Down with Hamas," no action was taken against them by the authorities.
According to Dr. Wizarat, it is crucial to recognize the current leadership in both India and Israel. She highlights that Israel is currently under the influence of right-wing leadership, and the same holds true for India. She explained that both have systems rooted in racism and a strong belief in hierarchical structures. Zionism and Hindutva share a similar sense of superiority and have a common adversary in the Muslims of Palestine and Kashmir. Wizarat pointed out that the occupation of Gaza and Kashmir exhibits striking similarities. She noted that the human rights violations, territorial encroachments, and dehumanization are remarkably similar when closely examined.
The new union
India has found a new ally in its global campaign to brand Muslims as terrorists, and it couldn't have chosen a more fitting partner than Israel. Both leaders, Modi and Netanyahu, have consistently targeted Muslims over the course of their political careers. Any response from the Muslim community is exploited by the two as an opportunity to garner support within their political base.
But this alliance goes beyond ideological convergence.
In a recent development, a court in Qatar sentenced eight retired Indian Navy personnel to death for undisclosed espionage charges. According to media reports, after months of detention, Qatari authorities disclosed that the eight individuals were accused of spying on Qatar's confidential submarine program for Israel.
Last year, in another significant move, the New York Times reported that the Indian government, under the leadership of Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, obtained spyware from Israel as part of a weapons purchase agreement signed during his maiden visit to Israel. Authorities in New Delhi refuted claims of acquiring Israeli-made spyware, alleged to have been used for infecting the phones of political opponents, human rights activists, and journalists within India. According to the New York Times, Pegasus, alongside a missile system, constituted the central components of an approximately $2 billion deal involving advanced weaponry and intelligence tools at that time.
"India and Israel have a longstanding collaboration. Reports suggest that they have been working together on various intelligence and other endeavors for several years, with an increased focus on such cooperation since Modi assumed power," said Wizarat.
She indicated that this collaboration will persist in their efforts to shape the global discourse surrounding two of the longest conflicts in human history. "We shouldn't be astonished when we see such efforts to distort the realities surrounding the suffering of Muslims in Kashmir and Palestine, carried out by their respective aggressors, Israel and India."
No Surprises
India has been no stranger to its name being associated with the spread of fake or unverified news or even fully funded campaigns to distort facts.
In 2020, a Brussels-based NGO dedicated to countering disinformation targeting the European Union uncovered a 15-year-old operation orchestrated by an Indian entity. The operation involved the use of hundreds of fake media outlets and the identity of a deceased professor, all aimed at targeting Pakistan.
The report from EU DisinfoLab, titled "Indian Chronicles: A Comprehensive Examination of a 15-Year Operation Targeting the EU and United Nations in Support of Indian Interests," characterized the Indian operation as the most extensive network of disinformation they have ever revealed.
The disinformation network, masterminded by the Srivastava Group, a New Delhi-based entity, had a primary objective of "discrediting Pakistan on the global stage" while exerting influence on decision-making at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the European Parliament.
According to the report, to achieve the goal of "undermining Pakistan internationally," this network engaged in a series of tactics, including the "revival of defunct NGOs" within the UN, posing as representatives of the European Union, and channeling content generated by fictitious media outlets into real media channels. These actions reached and impacted millions of individuals across South Asia and around the world.
While the report did not link the campaign directly to the Indian government, it is known that the Srivastava Group had strong connections with the Modi administration.