External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday in a virtual meeting with Indian ambassadors and high commissioners posted across the globe talked about the ‘one-sided’ narrative being weaved against the current government by the international media — the narrative that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government had failed the country by its “incompetent” handling of the second Covid-19 wave. Jaishankar called upon the officers to immediately counter such agenda-driven reportage.
According to news reports, the participants were told that the ferocity of the second surge was something no public health expert in the world had predicted and that health infrastructure even in the most advanced countries had crumbled in the first wave last year, so this was not a disaster that was uniquely Indian.
The fact that the country’s EAM had to hold a meeting to discuss the false narrative set by the inherently left-leaning international media should speak volumes about the power of such publications. Across generations, the left media has held the top power positions and has acted as the gatekeeper of the media narrative.
In the day and age of social media, where news travels faster than a tachyon particle, setting narrative agendas has become the paramount weapon of the left establishment. The sudden surge of feature-length op-eds and articles surveying the second surge of the pandemic in India whilst lobbying for foreign vaccines is an example of how the West wants to turn the tide in their favour and malign the current regime.
Now more than ever, it becomes important that India should have its alternate media, away from the clutches of the few vested interest groups. TFIGlobal – a sister publication of TFIPost that sprung up roughly a year ago with minimal resources has managed to create an alternate voice where India’s perspective on the global issues is put forth.
While most global media houses misreported the Galwan clash, and pandered to the Chinese version in exchange for a few yuans, claiming that India was facing setbacks at the hands of China – TFIGlobal stood its ground and brought the truth forward which was lapped up by millions.
China’s belligerence in the South China Sea and its failed vaccine diplomacy was brought to the readers as well as the viewers with utmost nuance.
Similarly, Joe Biden and his coterie of left-communist comrades masquerading as Democrat leaders had also been exposed to the tee by TFIGlobal.
However, flowing against the current comes up with its set of challenges. The hegemony of the big tech and the left has time and again hurt TFIGlobal’s business but it reaffirms our belief that we are hitting where it hurts the most. Add to it, the burgeoning love of strangers from across the planet who have also grown weary and tired of the predictability and hostility of the left media.
A nationalist government of PM Modi has been the target of the West for the last seven years. However, it couldn’t manage to dent into his popularity, even by a tiny fraction. But death sells, and the vultures of the liberal media have started publicizing photos of the dead and grieving, round the clock to mass multiply their effect.
Indian crematoriums have become photoshoot sites for international media. The privacy of Indians is being infringed, the sanctity of their last rites being made a show of. Cremation grounds with lit pyres are becoming first page pictures to be used by the likes of The New York Times to sell more copies of their publications.
The New York Times recently published a picture of a crematorium replete with burning pyres on its first page. Interestingly, publications like NYT did not have the gumption to publish pictures of funerals taking place in America when the virus was ravaging their country.
There is some romanticism in clicking pictures of poor slums and stamping them on magazines and winning the ‘pultizers’ that drives the western media to the Indian shores. It is imperative to note that double the number of people have died in the USA, despite having a fraction of the population of India and having the most advanced healthcare infrastructure. But of course, no such news grabs the headlines as the likes of CNN and NYT conveniently hide them under the rug.
So @anniegowen finds the image of funeral pyres in India ‘stunning’, when the US has lost 12 times more people to Covid. But then, she is is just a pervert who is using the misery of brown people to satisfy her white colonial thirst for pandemic porn! pic.twitter.com/9uebMHQm3S
— Shefali Vaidya. (@ShefVaidya) April 26, 2021
Publications such as CNN and BBC which are fundamentally partisan in their coverage and have time and again been exposed for their masked allegiances to certain ideologies might have granted a relative easy coverage to the destruction that the Covid’s first wave caused in their country’s backyard — but they have been lethal on the PM Modi government.
Read more: Western liberal media is sharing images of India’s crematoriums with great mirth and joy
Some self-loathing Indians who are enrolled on the payrolls of such foreign publications resorted to their usual style of reporting by painting a dystopian picture and twisting the facts to suit their narrative.
“Three health officials who asked to remain anonymous told me they believe that the daily number of COVID-19 deaths in India has already crossed the 10,000 figure.” Rana Ayub had written in one of her Times article.
Surely the positive case count numbers can be fudged by the states but no one can hide when 10,000 people die of the pandemic. There won’t be a need for anonymous tips or sources when such reality unfolds. Just because her piece has been published in Times which has lost its credibility in the years gone by, doesn’t mean it is the cardinal truth.
The upshot of the article is that despite the rhetoric and screaming headlines of the cabal and its publications, TFIGlobal is here to stay and counter the imbalance in the narrative war. Just what the EAM remarked, we will continue to uphold our high journalistic standards and bat for dharma and India. The world needs to hear the Indian voice.