India: On Information war against China

What the Ukrainian conflict has thought to many countries is the rising importance of Information war of building a narrative. It is clear from this conflict that Ukraine has won the information war against Russia.

Now back to China. China knew how damaging information war can be when they saw US defeating Iraq in the second Gulf war all on the suspicion that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Though the US was not able to fool United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA), they were still able to fool Americans and people around the world by building a narrative around that.

Now China knew how biased Western Media can be, thus started their own channels on international stage like CGTN (China Global Television Network), Xinhua News Agency etc. What China was able to do with these news outlet was put China’s perspective. When things got out of control like the Hongkong protest, Galwan valley clash they banned Western Media to broadcast in China thus able to only show to its citizens what the Chinese government perspective was. We Indians and many foreign outlet know that China last around 35-40 troops in Galwan clash but China only admitted to just 4 troops and many in China still believes this version. This is Information war.

Now coming back to India. We got the most recent setback in Information war was the Framer Protest and Hijab now in Karnataka with Western media often targeting the government. Now not coming to the conclusion that Farm bill or Hijab row was right or wrong, but what we lost was how these incidents got internationalized in such a way that misinformation started brewing that these incidents are happening all over India but in reality the Farm bill protest was only limited with respect to Punjab, Delhi border and UP, and in case of Hijab row only in Karnataka. Some Muslim International Organization wanted these incidents to be discussed in the UN and against INDIA by UNHRC.

HERE we lost the Information war, but we were able to win the information war when we revoked Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, with Pakistan trying to Internationalize it and still doing yet with no success. What India needs is an International News Channel to put India’s perspective to the World. Many countries have such channels like Al Jazeera of Qatar, DW of Germany, France24 of France, Voice of America of USA, RT of Russia, TRT of Turkey, BBC of United Kingdom just to name a few.

Also what India needs is some social local social media application like Desi Facebook, Desi Twitter like the India Koo App, etc. and must be promoted as it was seen that these Western App on the face value look independent but sometimes act in cohesion with their respective Government here the US govt. Thus with these apps the US GOVT also wields a lot of power and thus was able to use against China during the COVID pandemic blame game. Many countries now have a negative image of China.

I believe this Indian Government knows how information war can be lethal and respective steps are taken in this direction so that freedom of speech and expression as guaranteed by the Constitution are not violated at the same time national interest is taken care of.