The Western bias and why it cannot digest India’s success

There has been distorted coverage of India's events in the West. The top ten keywords used by the media in their headlines have been -- Cow, Hindu, Muslim, Fear, Violence, Mob, Protest, Hate, Kashmir and Mob

New Delhi, Nov 10: The United Nations will examine the human rights record of India. This is the fourth time that the United Nations Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review Working Group will examine India's human rights record.

Those who submitted records include ActionAid Association, Amnesty International, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children, Human Rights Watch, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, International Commission of Jurists, Islamic Human Rights Commission, Kashmir Institute of International Relations and National Campaign Against Torture.

Over the past couple of years, one has witnessed a sustained campaign by international organisations and their proxies in India to portray New Delhi in bad light. Apart from organisations, the foreign media has also played its part in this sustained campaign.

Hurting India:

In addition to hurting the country, these entities also indulge in campaigns to show Hindus in poor light. In October, the DC edition of the Wall Street Journal carried a full-page advertisement in which the US government was urged to impose sanctions on India's finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman and 10 other Indians. Interestingly, the advertisement was placed by Ramachandran Viswanathan, a US citizen of Indian origin who has been dubbed as an economic offender by the Enforcement Directorate in India.

In October, Hindus, their homes and temples were deliberately attacked on the basis of fake news that was being spread. Violent attacks were reported on Hindus in Leicester.

Since 2014, there has been a sustained campaign to show India in poor light. There are all kind of elements who have joined this bandwagon and they include left liberals, the Khalistan forces and even the Western media to a large extent.

The Western bias:

In this context, let us visit the research paper published in the Indian Institute of Mass Communication's journal, Communicator. The paper titled, 'An Analysis of Global Coverage of Events in India,' is authored by journalist Amol Parth.

Amol goes on to offer five case studies to illustrate the hypocrisy of the Western media.

First, he goes on to cite the BBC's duplicity in a report titled, 'India's coronavirus: Round-the-clock mass cremations'. He goes on to point out when lakhs of people died in the first wave of the pandemic in the UK and the US in 2020, there was no such coverage. There were no headlines in the Western media when deaths took place at such an alarming rate.

The second was a New York Times article about the PM Modi's government resolve to promote the indigenous textile sector. The article by Asgar Qadri claimed that people's wardrobe choices were also being imposed on them. "It's ignorance to attack the promotion of local industries of Saree, which has been women's attire in the Indian subcontinent since Indus Valley Civilization and continues to be so today as well," Parth said.

More by New York Times:

The other article mentioned by Amol is about an ancient that took place in Manhattan in 2017 in which a truck drove over people. This was dubbed as the deadliest terror attack, but the death of 40 CRPF jawans in Pulwama was labelled as an explosion.

Despite the Jaish-e-Mohammad claiming responsibility for this attack, the New York Times World wrote an article titled, 'In India's Election Season, an Explosion Interrupts Modi's Slump'.

The New York Times also carried a cartoon to downplay India's achievement of being the first country in Asia to reach Mars. The cartoon shows two men reading about India's Mars Mission with the title 'Elite Space Club'. There is a man with a cow with India written on his shirt knocking on the door of the space club.

Why the grief:

Firstly these newspapers have gained immensely as India has a huge number of people who can read and write in English. In India The New York Times had a 22 per cent increase while globally it fell by 8 per cent.

The Wall Street Journal and Time also increased in India when compared to its statistics globally. BBC expanded 173 per cent in India between March 2019 and March 2021.

Data provided by Parth shows that there have been distorted coverage of India's events such as the anti-CAA protests, Article 370 just to name a few. The top ten keywords used by the Western media in their headlines were Cow, Hindu, Muslim, Fear, Violence, Mob, Protest, Hate, Kashmir, Mob.

In addition to the readership boost in India, the West has not been entirely happy that India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. To further their woes is the establishment of a strong foothold by India in the international market. India's foreign policy too has become stronger and these are the facts that the West is unable to digest, which in turn has led to such reporting of fake human rights narratives, just to name a few.