We in Pakistan all saw how viscerally hateful of Pakistan the Indian mainstream media has been – and this came out in full force during the May 2025 conflict. The disinformation and hate that came forth from India’s mainstream media during this sensitive time was on another level, and it culminated in the now infamous monologue on Indian national television by retired Indian Army Major Gaurav Arya when he gleefully ‘reported’ that ‘Lahore had been captured’ and that ‘Karachi’s port had been bombed’ into smithereens by the Indian Navy.
Of course, everyone in Pakistan knew that this was a complete load of baloney – but for a few hours, it did not stop ordinary Indians from thinking and believing that they had, in fact, not only won the conflict but also captured two of the enemy’s biggest and most important cities.
And then soon the United States President Donald Trump tweeted that a ceasefire was in place and that he and his administration had played a major role in securing it (something that he often repeats publicly now – and which India continues to deny). So most Indians who were loyally following their own media’s reporting of the conflict were bewildered because a few hours ago they thought the enemy had been conquered and now they were being told – and that too by the United States President and not their own government – that a ceasefire was in place.
This about-turn was much more than the proverbial egg on the face for India and its ruling BJP party, and its military. It was a betrayal of the public trust of the Indian public in its mainstream media – that it misled them completely and wilfully, at the behest of the ruling BJP as well as the Indian military, to paint a picture that victory was in sight and that the enemy was about to capitulate, and that the Indian Army would soon march into Pakistani Kashmir unhindered and unmatched.
The truth of the matter is that, hateful as it is of anything and everything to do with Pakistan, India’s mainstream media is no friend of its own Indian audience either. The reason for that is simple, because it does not perform even the most basic of journalistic functions – to report accurately and fairly, and to speak truth to power.
Much of India’s mainstream media, in particular its television news anchors, act as spokespersons or cheerleaders for Modi and his government and his government’s policies
On both these fronts, it fails miserably and lets down its own Indian audience. It misinforms them and provides them with a healthy dose of disinformation, usually on India’s relations with the outside world, and in particular with its neighbours. It does not at all even attempt to speak truth to power, or question the government about its policies and act as a watchdog over the government and other branches of official power. Narendra Modi has been Prime Minister of India since 2014 and has yet to hold even one conference with Indian media – the kind that United States President Donald Trump has literally two or three times a day: when he is sitting in the Oval Office or when leaving the White House to travel for an official engagement, and so on.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that on most days, much of India’s mainstream media, in particular its television news anchors, act as spokespersons or cheerleaders for Modi and his government and his government’s policies. While criticism of his government and its policies is now gradually increasing on social media, by and large, it is still absent from mainstream media.
The recent tragic crash of an Indian Air Force Tejas at the Dubai Air Show is a case in point. Instead of asking questions, as dictated by common sense, of the Government of India and the Indian Air Force on what must be an embarrassing (and of course unfortunate) turn of events and which is likely to torpedo its plans to export the fighter jet, the mainstream media was, as usual, engaging in disinformation, speculation, and in fact outright dissemination of hate (as usual against Pakistan).
A popular news anchor (who is close to the Indian establishment and usually spouts its narrative verbatim) and his retired Indian general guest on his show both blamed the United States for the crash – and their logic was that the Tejas’ engines are provided by a United States company and that America did not want to see India succeed in developing its own fighter jet, which it could then also export to other countries. As usual, no proof of any kind was presented for such a serious allegation. And on social media, several mainstream Indian journalists were pushing disinformation to suggest that all of Pakistan was celebrating the IAF crash, when that was far from reality.
The vast majority of Pakistanis expressed condolences on social media over the IAF crash, and Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif even quoted a tweet from another Pakistani account which had expressed its sincere condolences to the IAF and the dead pilot’s family. Instead, however, the Indian narrative picked a handful of Twitter handles which had shared different kinds of sentiments to suggest that all of Pakistan was celebrating. And the irony is that such an unfounded accusation was coming from members of the Indian mainstream media, which stood completely exposed during its coverage of the India–Pakistan conflict.
The Indian media is no friend of the people of India. It refuses to act as a watchdog on the government and the state, and pushes the hate-filled propaganda of the ruling BJP against minorities and several of India’s neighbours, and is an enabler of Modi’s worldview, which sees India in a perpetual state of war or near-war with Pakistan. By doing that, it facilitates the BJP in its acts of omission and commission, and because of this, India remains poverty-stricken and ridden with corruption.