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India's government is trying to silence US critics
- slushy-chivalry 2y ago[flagged]
- petesergeant 2y agoWhat is the message you think is being pushed, and by whom?
- dyauspitr 2y agoProbably media against Modi’s right wing/auth government. I’m generally opposed to the Modi government but Jammu and Kashmir is on the largest infrastructure building spree since independence. Dozens of railway lines and roads are currently being built eg. USBRL, Zojila, the lite metro, massive hydroelectric plants on the Chenab etc.
- ecjhdnc2025 2y agoMm. But fascists, authoritarians and populists get things done, because of alignment, obedience and because they have less regard for legitimate objections or the law. I think if you could separate out what Modi has done for India's national pride and infrastructure from what he's doing to the rule of law, and have the former without the latter, everyone would be happy. (You can make this point about almost any very populist leader)
- ImJamal 2y agoNot who you are responding to, but Merriam Webster has the definition of "the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person". A news article is spreading information so it meets that criteria. The article is critical of Modi and his government to the point you could argue it is attempting to injury him (a person), his government (an institution) and his ideology (a cause). Seems like it is textbook propaganda. Of course, pretty much any political news story would count as propaganda.
- ecjhdnc2025 2y ago> Of course, pretty much any political news story would count as propaganda. Based on the standard you are suggesting, yes. But not based on the Merriam-Webster definition you're quoting. Criticism -- even the harshest criticism -- is not inherently for the purpose of injury.
- ImJamal 2y agoAccording to Merriam Webster's definition of injury: "hurt, damage, or loss sustained". Do you think this article is not attempting to damage the reputation of Modi? Dictionary.com has an interesting definition "Law. any wrong or violation of the rights, property, reputation, etc., of another for which legal action to recover damages may be made." Seems like it could possibly apply since there is an attempt to damage Modi's reputation. Do you really think Vox, a left leaning news outlet, is not intending to harm the reputation of Modi, a right leaning politician?
- ecjhdnc2025 2y agoIf you are a notable person and I have video of you kicking a puppy, and I publish it because you are a notable person and kicking a puppy is wrong, what would damage your reputation is kicking a puppy. Not me publishing it. This act of expanding the definition of propaganda to include the simple publication of harsh critical journalism is unbecoming.
- ImJamal 2y agoIf nobody knows you kicked the puppy, then your reputation has not been harmed by you kicking the puppy. Once it becomes public, then your reputation has been harmed. I'm a bit confused how you think doing something that nobody knows about could cause reputational damage? To be clear I am not blaming the media for causing the reputational harm in this situation. The blame falls on the person who kicked the puppy, but it doesn't change the fact there was no damage until it was published. I think the problem we are having is we are starting with different core assumptions about propaganda. I believe it is neutral and can be used for good or bad purposes. You appear to believe it is always bad.
- 123yawaworht456 2y ago- the message being pushed is "India is le bad. sic 'em!" - it is being pushed by the usual suspects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_influence_on_public_opinion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_influence_on_public_opinio... - the reason for the push is India's neutral stance on the oh so important outbreak of tribal warfare happening half a world away in Eastern Europe. there was a whole barrage of negative hit pieces about India at some point in the past two years, right after their public refusal to stop buying Russian oil or something. I assume something similar happened recently.
- ecjhdnc2025 2y agoConcern about the way Modi governs India is in no way as new as the Ukraine conflict; that's a simple bad faith argument. I have no idea what supports or does not support your CIA argument, but concern about Modi is newer even than concern about the rise of the BJP and Hindu nationalism. And that concern isn't just international.
- 123yawaworht456 2y agothe media paid no attention to that for years. and then suddenly, there was a whole barrage all at once.
- ecjhdnc2025 2y agoThis is quite simply untrue. At least in the UK, criticism of Modi has been pretty regular and it is quite distinct from criticism of India (it's very often written with at least some reference to our historical involvement in the problems Modi exploits.) Do a google news search for 'narendra modi site:www.theguardian.com' for example, sort by date, and you will see stories going back to at least 2019, and that is just the 30 pages result limit. Do an advanced date search, key in a range, and you can easily find criticism of Modi's populism and the BJP's Hindu nationalism going back to 2010. There are more than 40 pages of articles on The Guardian's site for the subject of Modi alone: https://www.theguardian.com/world/narendra-modi?page=40 https://www.theguardian.com/world/narendra-modi?page=40 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/17/narendra-modi-india-violence-elections https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/17/narendra-modi-... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/14/narendra-modi-extremism-india https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/14/narend... Here's an article from 2010 talking about Modi's involvement in riots in Gujarat when he was governor there: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/mar/28/gujarat-narendra-modi-massacre-inquiry-india https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/mar/28/gujarat-narend... Here's an article from 2003: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/aug/18/india.uk https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/aug/18/india.uk I don't think I need provide more evidence? In the USA, criticism of Modi admittedly is pretty spotty, but that's more to do with the abject failure of US journalism to consider anything beyond its borders until there's an easily quantified or enumerated crisis. But I am fairly sure if you pick a US newspaper and do a similar search you will find similar criticism.
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- devmor 2y agoYou read a journalistic story about media suppression and it makes you feel like you read propaganda? That’s a pretty disturbing take. What makes you feel like this is propaganda?
- _lvbh 2y agoTitle feels needlessly inflammatory. Perhaps “Modi’s campaign” might make more sense. India’s government feels like one the US would usually oppose if not for the fact that India and China are somewhat enemies and thus “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”
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- Etheryte 2y agoA foreign government harasses US citizens living on US soil and calling this out feels needlessly inflammatory to you?
- beardyw 2y agoIt is common practice to describe the actions of a government in this way. Mostly because what else would "India's campaign" mean?
- amriksohata 2y agoyeh i thought that its a bit weird, just reads odds
- model-15-DAV 2y agoI am friends with a couple of documentary filmmakers based in India, and they tell me of some intense censorship of media there, along with other ecological and human rights issues. The authoritarian turn throughout the world has to be met with its rival. Bog-standard Liberalism will not solve this I fear.
- kmfrk 2y ago[flagged]
- satish-setty 2y agoIs there something special about "international" documetarists? BBC fought tax evasion in the courts and lost the case.
- petesergeant 2y ago> BBC fought tax evasion in the courts and lost the case Sorry, what’s the relevance of this?
- satish-setty 2y agoI'm replying to the person who shared link on BBC website about tax raids on BBC office by Indian authorities
- satish-setty 2y agoSampling bias? I know plenty of leftist publications like The Wire, Scroll, News Laundry and even NDTV who are free to express their opinions without censorhip. It's just that the majority of Indians don't ,trust any documentarists anymore (leftist or rightist) because they all push their own agenda.
- model-15-DAV 2y agoGiven the article's contents, I wanted to add a data-point. Also anyone who makes news/etc. that does not push an agenda is simply pushing the hegemonic agenda - Modi's, in this case.
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- bberenberg 2y agoMy guess is that some form of this is fairly common by all countries who have powerful international intelligence apparatus. Doesn’t make it ok or good, and it’s great that journalists highlight the issue to raise awareness. But also important that for anyone who thinks this is bad who is from a world power to understand your country likely does something at least adjacent to this.
- kmfrk 2y agoThe Sweden Democrats recently were found out to have done this: https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/swedish-coalition-undermined-by-far-right-troll-farm-scandal/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/swedish-coali... Made things a bit awkward in the governing coalition. Makes you wonder how this stuff operates at scale and what the infrastructure of it is like.
- petesergeant 2y ago> were found out to have done this A political party running a troll farm is not the same as the intelligence apparatus of a state being used to harass journalists.
- hagbard_c 2y agoThe Sweden Democrats have done the same as e.g. the Social Democrats have been doing for a very long time, it is just that the regular media - which has had its focus on the Sweden Democrats for a very long time now - have thus far ignored this. This leaves the 'alternative' media which does report on such things, e.g. Samnytt [1] has a piece on how SAP (which is the full acronym for this party, it stands for 'Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetareparti' - Sweden's social-democratic workers party, the biggest party in the country and the one which has had sole control over Sweden for most of the last century) has spent more than 5 million Swedish kronor (~$500.000) on their own 'troll factories'. Unfortunately those alternative media are just as biased as the regular media but where this is usually ignored for the latter it is used as an excuse to ignore anything published by the former - very convenient for SAP but not that good for the political discourse in Sweden. [1] https://samnytt.se/socialdemokraterna-har-satsat-over-fem-miljoner-pa-trollfabriker https://samnytt.se/socialdemokraterna-har-satsat-over-fem-mi...
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- spacebanana7 2y agoOver time I suspect India-US relations will be more difficult than China-US relations. China has a largely separate cultural, media & technology spaces from the US and both are doing as much as they can to disentangle other sectors. So they can be enemies at a distance. India overlaps in so many ways that it's hard to resolve disputes. Is it okay for YouTube host content that promotes the caste system or Khalistan independence? Should Mastercard to business with Indian banks perform transactions against the spirit of US sanctions?
- maxglute 2y agoAnglo internet in for a rude awakening when default English narrative increasingly shifts Indian. Which TBF, no reason it shouldn't. Pretty much only sadists in twitter geopolitics space tries to engage Indian nationalists now. Indian brigade on English reddit also fairly "effective". Maybe immigration driven west will learn blowback of importing diasphora drama not worth it and filter for serenity. IMO India will eventually start their own online ecosystem, they're too big not to. Somewhat related, has anyone noticed youtube cracking down on hindi channels with English titles, use to get tons of them recommended looking up tech dominant in Asia like Xiaomi. Now rarely see any, seems like there's already filtering in place to segregate.
- lenkite 2y agoYouTube already censors content considered as "misinformation" by the U.S. government and has worked with the White House to mass delete videos inconvenient to the U.S. Democratic Party or considered dangerous to U.S. sovereignty aka Jan 6 "insurrection" videos that provide non-whitewashed data. By equal merit, Youtube should have no issues removing content that promotes Khalistan independence or anything the Indian government wants censored. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
- rinka_singh 2y agoI agree and I think this difficulty should be recognized and made so earlier rather than later. The US should sanction India, it is a better way to go.
- FrankWilhoit 2y agoThey've already done wetwork in Canada, with no consequences. We need to come down on this kind of thing like a ton of bricks, or the wetwork will be next; and if you have nation-states doing wetwork on your territory, you have nothing left.
- amriksohata 2y agothere is credible evidence that is worth looking at, but its not yet proven or shown to india India says Canada has offered no evidence it was involved in death of Sikh separatist. India says that Canada has shared no evidence to back up its allegation that the Indian government was involved in the death of a Sikh separatist leader in Canada last year, despite recent arrests in the crime https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/10/hardeep-singh-nijjar-death-canada-no-evidence-india-involvement https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/10/hardee...
- dang 2y agoThis article doesn't help its case by using such an inflammatory title and headings like "India’s plot against America". We all know the clickbait standards of modern media, but good grief that's bad. We've toned down the title above but if someone who actually reads the article can suggest a more accurate and neutral title, preferably using language from the article itself, we can change it again.
- aaomidi 2y agoI’m uncomfortable with HN selectively deciding where to use the Article’s headline vs where to editorialize tbh. The implication here is that $moderator knows better than the journalistic organization publishing this article. Might not be the intention, but it is a fair view on the editing.
- happytoexplain 2y ago>The implication here is that $moderator [or submitter] knows better than the journalistic organization I think that's exactly the intention, and personally I agree with it. I'm reading this via HN because I like HN's rules and community. I trust them to have better headline judgment than headline writers, on average. Not least because HN has apparently reasonable guidance against clickbait headlines, and many journalistic sources apparently do not, which is not terribly surprising considering the motivating factors involved.
- xboxnolifes 2y agoAnd even if you disagree with a HN title, you'll see the original once you click the link. It's not like it gets changed at the source. It would very quickly be brought up if a source title was significantly changed without reason.
- dang 2y agoWe don't know better, we just have different jobs. Media organizations have headline writers whose job is to sex up the title. Our job is to knock it down to size. This is in the site guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." and there's a good 15 years of standard practice here around how to do that. We don't editorialize in the sense of using the title to take a side on the underlying topic; the goal is to be as accurate and neutral as possible, and to use representative language from the article itself ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=representative%20article%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). You have a good point (we're not experts or particularly qualified, so who do we think we are? it's a fair question!), but it's superseded by a more practical concern: if we didn't do this, HN's front page would be filled with linkbait titles. Since titles are the biggest influence on threads, this would change the character of the site and even make its mandate (intellectual curiosity) impossible. So we try to make it bookish (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20bookish&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), to use pg's old word, and it has long been part of the implicit contract between the site and its readers—so much so that when a linkbait title does show up on the front page, they will complain in the thread about absentee mods and typically flag the submission.
- aaomidi 2y agoThe same thing is happening with Israel, but in the case of Israel - most media is too scared to even say this is happening.
- aussiegreenie 2y agoThe BJP (India) uses the same strategies as the Chinese Communist Party. I love both India and China but I self-censor when talking about either because I do not want to be targeted by the "$0.50 army" (CCP) or the BJP IT cells. As to attacking America, they India Government murdered and activist in Canada and will kill people in America.
- rinka_singh 2y agoI disagree with this. We have a lot of people dissenting within India. They are not tied down except for counterattacks on social media by people who disagree with them - which to my mind is fair, as both sides are free to (verbally) attack each other - the essence of free speech. US critics, when they attempt to influence Indian elections, definitely deserve to be slapped down. US (or any other Country) would do similarly. eg. Canada claimed so recently...