RAW Planted Stories in Indian Media

[Riaz Haq]

Last year, India's ex foreign secretary Sujata Singh bitterly complained about negative stories "planted in the media" by the Modi government to "tarnish" her reputation as part of the campaign to force her resignation. "The commentary that I have seen over the past two days has pained me deeply. I believe it was not necessary to get low and dirty," she said, according to India's First Post.

RAW Planted Stories:

Doing a Google search today on news about Pakistan shows the first page of the search results filled with negative stories that seem obviously planted by the Modi government in highly search-engine-optimized Indian media.

The planted stories present Indian Army's claimed "surgical strikes" in Pakistan as fact. They do not bother to put quotes around "surgical strikes" as international media have done. They do not ask any questions nor offer proof of such "surgical strikes".

Some of these planted stories claim "mass public protests" and "Pakistan flag burnings" in Azad Kashmir, Gilgit Baltistan and Balochistan  without offering any evidence.  Other such made-up stories are about civil-military tensions in Pakistan and the country's "international isolation".

Psychological Operations (PsyOps): 

Who plants these stories? And how? Let us examine this in a little more detail.

Professor Shyam Tekwani of the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii has studied how the Indian government plants stories as part of its psychological operations (PsyOps). Here's an excerpt from his book "Media and Conflict Reporting in Asia":

"With a huge deployment of army, paramilitary and police forces fighting a host of separatist rebel armies, psyops has become a regular feature of journalism in conflict-ridden zones like India's Kashmir and northeastern states. The army and the paramilitary forces, the intelligence agencies and even state police have their own budgets and dedicated psyops. While most organizations use their intelligence units and public relations officials to perform the task, the Indian army has a full-fledged psyops cell in the Directorate of Military Intelligence... Bigger intelligence agencies like the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) employ media directors, mostly drawn from the Indian Information Service......And what do they do? Plant and push stories that run down the enemy and their image, promote their own cause and image, cover their track on a secret killing or blame it falsely on others (routine for them to pass off a secret killing by their assets as "infighting among  rebels") and create feel-good atmosphere about their own operations.....Psyops planners carefully take into account 

capabilities of their own "media assets" and the reach of the media they work for and whether the "plant" would hit the target area and create the necessary impact. It is war through the media--whoever said pen is mightier than sword is vindicated--but at the cost of professional journalism."

RAW Money Flow:

India has opened up a big money money spigot to use its agents, including its media assets, to destabilize Pakistan. RK Yadav, an ex intelligence official of RAW, has in a TV interview (Siyasat Ki Baat with RK Yadav video 6:00 minutes), talked about RAW agents with "suitcases and cupboards full of money".

Current National Security Advisor has talked about RAW recruiting terrorists with one-and-a-half times the money they are making from other sources.

RK Yadav has, in his book "Mission R&AW",  written about RAW money paid to late Pakistani politician Khan Abul Wali Khan in 1970s. He's also confirmed the existence of RAW-inspired 1960s Agartala Conspiracy that recruited Shaikh Mujib ur Rehman's Awami League to work for Indian intelligence.

More recently, London Police documents have revealed the testimony of MQM leaders Muhammad Anwar and Tariq Mir confirming that Altaf Husain received money from Indian intelligence.

Ex RAW chief A.S. Dulat has said "money goes a long way in Kashmir" intelligence operations.  Part of the money, it seems, is now flowing though the " RAW's media directors" and their "media assets" as described by Professor Tekwani in "Media and Conflict Reporting in Asia".

Western Media:

Western media often use a few stringers in conflict zones to file reports. These stringers are low-paid locals who are more prone to manipulation by authorities than more experienced better-paid correspondents. 

Professor Shyam Tekwani explains that foreign agencies like the Associated Press (AP) or Agence France Press (AFP) and even BBC often create a stringer monopoly of just one or two that feeds news to all the top global media outlets. Just a couple of stringers can be used by RAW to influence the entire global media reporting on Kashmir. 

Pakistani Media:

Pakistani media has grown from about 2,000 journalists in the year 2000 to nearly 20,000 of them now. Rapid growth has meant that many of them are inexperienced and naive. Some of them pick up the planted stories from India and publish them. Others lack conscience and do it for money.

Summary:

Indian media is abuzz with anti-Pakistan stories fabricated by "RAW's media directors" and planted by their "media assets" described by Professor Shyam Tekwani in his book "Media and Conflict Reporting in Asia" . These stories are part of Indian government's campaign to slander Pakistan to achieve the following objectives:

1. Deflect world attention from Indian Army atrocities in Kashmir.

2.  Cover up India's proxy war of terror in Pakistan.

3. Isolate Pakistan internationally.

4. Sabotage China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

It's important for Pakistanis to not only understand what India is doing but also make a serious effort to make the world aware of it.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Noam Chomsky on Indian Media

700,000 Indian Soldiers Vs 10 Million Kashmiris

Modi's Covert War in Pakistan

ADB Raises Pakistan GDP Growth Forecast

Gwadar as Hong Kong West

China-Pakistan Industrial Corridor

Indian Spy Kulbhushan Yadav's Confession

Ex Indian Spy Documents RAW Successes Against Pakistan

Saleem Safi of GeoTV on Gwadar

Pakistan FDI Soaring with Chinese Money for CPEC

[Riaz Haq]

Arun Shourie On Media Freedom: #Indian govt raids are an attempt to intimidate #India's free press. #Modi http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/arun-shouries-speech-on-media-freedo... … via @ndtv

My dear friends, I want to first begin by expressing my deep gratitude to Narendra Modi. He has brought so many friends together. And as a return favour, I want to read him a couplet, which Kuldip Nayar will tell us who it is by:

Tujhse se pahle vo jo ik shakhs yahan takht-nashin tha
Us ko bhi apne khuda hone pe itna hi yaqin tha

(He who occupied this throne before you
He too believed himself to be God as much as you)

And as that is from a Pakistani poet (Habib Jalib) I must protect myself by reading from the Granth Sahib: Ram gayo, Ravan gayo, jake Bhau Parivaar...Ye bhii jaayenge. (Ram is gone, so is Ravan, and these people too will go.)

So we must have that confidence. As there is no fact that needs to be added, no point in law that needs to be added after the person who has been the shield of freedom in India, Mr Fali Nariman, has given us such a good exposition.

I will address the question which (journalist) Nihal Singh sahib proposed. The question is: What should we do? And as Mr Kuldip Nayar said, it is not necessary to answer this question, at the time of the Emergency, but the fact of the matter is every generation is taught the lesson of freedom.

So this time, once again that lesson has begun. The first thing we must do is to recognise that a new phase has begun. Because thus far the government was using two instruments. One was to stuff the mouth of the media with the bribe of advertisements. There is a Zulu proverb that a dog with a bone in its mouth can't bark. So, they were converting the media into a dog with the advertisements in its mouth that cannot bark at them.

And the second point was, they were controlling and managing the media by the subterranean spreading of fear: Yaar, tum jaante nahi ho, Modi sab sun rahaa hai, uske paas saari team hai, ye hai, woh hai... Amit Shah CBI ko control kartaa hai, kal tumhaare par ye hogaa...Arre yaar, ye ho gayaa hai, phir bhi aadmi zindaa hai (points towards Prannoy Roy). Phir bhi channel chal rahi hai. (You know, Modi is listening to everything. He has this big team, he has this, he has that...Amit Shah controls the CBI, tomorrow they will do this to you... But, this has happened (the CBI raids) and the man (Prannoy Roy) is still alive. The channel is still going strong.)

You must see that now they have got what they could from those two instruments. So now they are using the third instrument, which is overt pressure. And they have made NDTV an example of that. And this will intensify in the coming months, I believe this will intensify. One because of the nature of the regime, the nature of the regime - its genes are totalitarian. What does totalitarian mean? Total domination in the entire geography of India, in every sphere of life - in all fora, they must dominate. So, they are extending it step by step, if you look at the pattern. The second is, that the gap between what they claim in their advertisements and speeches, and what the people are feeling on the ground in their lives - whether you're a farmer or a person who is losing his job, that is so wide already but that will become wider in the next two years as investments doesn't revive and other things happen. For that reason, they will then take to not just managing but suppressing the voices of dissent. So that's the first thing to realise.....

[Riaz Haq]

Foreign Media Calls Out Indian Media’s Silence on Cobrapost Sting

https://www.thequint.com/news/india/foreign-media-on-cobrapost-sting

The ignominy of Indian mainstream media’s deafening silence around the Cobrapost sting ‘Operation 136’ , which sought to expose the alleged underbelly of India’s biggest media outlets, has caught the eye of many international media houses.

Though the operation and its claims have been refuted by the media firms who have allegedly been exposed, what has raised eyebrows is the Indian media’s coverage, or lack thereof, surrounding the sting operation.

The sting operation that targets 27 media outlets, including some of the country’s biggest, reveals the supposed willingness of these media outlets to run political and religious propaganda in favour of the ruling government in return for hefty financial gains.

Apart from The Indian Express, that reported the story in a hard hitting piece titled ‘Where Anything Goes’ , most of the mainstream media turned a blind eye towards the story.

This led to a number of international media outlets calling out the Indian media for having failed to highlight the failures within the fraternity.

Indian Press Seems Willing to Peddle Political Propaganda: Foreign Policy
Pamposh Raina’s report in Foreign Policy talks about the fact that if proven, the media of the world’s largest democracy, would be willing to be used as propaganda mouthpieces by religious and political parties to spread their agenda.

“Despite sting journalism’s controversial reputation, the exposé, if accurate, reveals the ease with which the Indian press seems willing to peddle a political agenda. And, if true, the videos are all the more troubling given that India’s history has repeatedly shown mixing religion and politics can lead to violent sectarian clashes,” Foreign Policy wrote.
Troubling Doubts over the Independence of Media in India: BBC
Meanwhile the BBC highlighted the troubling issues that plague the Indian media, especially the fact that press freedom rankings of the country is a matter of shame and that if these allegations are proven true, it only further solidifies the concerns of Indian media’s follies.

There is no question that the Cobrapost allegations need to be treated with healthy skepticism. But there is also no question that they raise potentially troubling doubts over the independence of the media in India, particularly when it is a year away from a general election.
BBC
Also Read: Cobrapost Sting: ‘Explain Your Position,’ Editors Guild Asks Media

Problematic Time for Indian Journalism: Al Jazeera
A report in the Al Jazeera underlined that it is a troubling time for Indian journalism. In their weekly programme ‘The Listening Post’ that examines and dissects the world media, Richard Gizbert talks about the conspicuous absence of the Cobrapost sting operation in the Indian media coverage.


The suspicion that Indian media outlets can be bought is not new. So for many, the Cobrapost sting simply confirmed what they had long suspected and did so at an already problematic time for Indian journalism. In the four years of the Narendra Modi government, polarisation across the media has grown more extreme; the voices more shrill. 
Al Jazeera
If at all these allegations were to be proven true, it would be a damning moment for the Indian media, and would only further intensify the skepticism that one goes through while reading and watching news in the mainstream media.

(With inputs from Al Jazeera, BBC and Foreign Policy)

[Riaz Haq]

#Indian "journalist" Barkha Dutt tells colleague Madhu Trehan how she self-censored while reporting from #Kargil in 1999. She self-censors "anything she saw that Indian #Army did" in #Indian Occupied #Kashmir "in the interest of national security". #media https://youtu.be/w4woLeBD3r4

[Riaz Haq]

Praveen Swami’s legacy of “sources” journalism

https://caravanmagazine.in/media/praveen-swami-india-pakistan-balak...


By Praveen Donthi

In 2013, I reported for The Caravan on India’s compromised national security beat. I noted in the piece that reporting on the “natsec” beat in India has always been a murky business, centred on a transactional relationship between the reporters and their sources in the security establishments. The glamorous nature of natsec reporting also ensures that they keep their sources completely anonymous, and are rarely questioned by editors. These reporters rely heavily on leaks, and the price for access is publishing information without much regard for its provenance. The beneficiaries of these dynamics are India’s security establishment and its government, which, on matters of national security, prefer to function without public scrutiny and accountability.

Swami, whose work I analysed in the 2013 report, fits neatly into this pattern. “If there is one infallible indicator of what the top Indian intelligence agencies are thinking or cooking up, it is this: Praveen Swami’s articles,” a 2010 report by the Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association, a human-rights group, said.

Swami’s reports are based mostly on unnamed sources in intelligence agencies, and make big claims with recurring narrative patterns. I wrote in 2013 that his pieces often flaunted details that would have been difficult for any journalist to discover first-hand, all presented in neat, confident narratives. His work has since continued along similar lines. On 26 February, as the foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale announced that India had conducted an airstrike in Balakot, Firstpost had carried one of the first reports on the strikes. The article claimed that, “according to defence sources, IAF fighter jets not only targeted the JeM camp, but also Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen camps near Muzaffarabad.” These sources further claimed that there were six more targets “including Chakothi, Balakot and Muzaffarabad” and that five terror camps were also “targeted at Kangar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.” The article was attributed to “FP staff.”

A week after the government claimed Indian forces had carried out surgical strikes on terror-training camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir on 29 September 2016, Swami wrote a story for The Indian Express, where he was Strategic and International Affairs editor at the time. The story claimed to include “information which the governments of India and Pakistan have not made public.” The article, however, only confirmed India’s claims of the strikes. Swami claimed in the report that he sent questions to five people, “using a commercially available encrypted chat system,” who visited the villages that were apparently attacked during the strikes and spoke to the residents. Swami described them as “eyewitnesses.”

One of the stories Firstpost published after the recent fracas was by Francesca Marino, an Italian journalist. Marino’s story claimed that 35 people were killed in the strikes and mentioned that “the eyewitnesses were contacted by this correspondent using encrypted communication.”

Swami’s 2016 Indian Express story included this bit about a vengeful sentiment among the ranks of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, following the surgical strikes:

Friday prayers at a Lashkar-affiliated mosque in Chalhana, another eyewitness said, ended with a cleric vowing to avenge the deaths of the men killed the previous day. “The Lashkar men gathered there were blaming the Pak Army for failing to defend the border”, he said in one message, “and saying they would soon give India an answer it would never forget”.

He authored a Firstpost story on 1 March this year, which spoke of a similar sentiment among the leadership of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, whose training camp is believed to be target of India’s recent Balakot strike: