If A Martian Were To Land On Earth And Follow Only The Mainstream Media (MSM), He Would Find That India Was One Of The Worst Places On Planet Earth. India 2020, He Would Conclude, Is Just Like Germany 1938. Such Is MSM’s Power—And Folly.

Savor This From The New York Times (March 5): “Much Of The World Remained Quiet, Or Cautious, In Recent Months As India Began Locking Up Hundreds Of Opposition Politicians And Activists Without Charge Across The Country. Business Executives Say They Are Too Afraid To Speak Out About Shortcomings In The Government’s Economic Strategy. The Press Complains Of Government Intimidation.” In Short, Narendra Modi’s India Is Little Better Than Hell.

It Is True That There Are Problems In India—Ranging From Abuse Of Power, Assault On Civil Liberties, Excessive Economic Regulation, And Highhandedness Against The Media. But All This Did Not Begin “In Recent Months,” Or Even On May 26, 2014, When Modi Was Sworn In As Prime Minister.

Earlier Too Governments Used Their Authority To Harass Political Opponents, Tame Businessmen, And Muzzle The Press. Former Home Minister P. Chidambaram, For Instance, Used Security And Investigative Agencies To Bully And Harry Political Opponents; Worse, He Also Used Them To Create The Fear Of ‘Saffron Terror.’ It Was Under Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh That The Government Overturned The Supreme Court Verdict In The Vodafone Tax Case And Introduced Retrospective Taxation. And It Was Also Under Him That The Draconian Section 66A Was Introduced To The Information Technology Act. This Section Was Invalidated By The Supreme Court In 2015.

Much Of The Western Media’s Biases Are Also Shaped By Its Interactions With Tendentious And Often Ignorant Indian ‘Experts.’ Consider This Gem From Milan Vaishnav, The Director Of The South Asia Program At The Carnegie Endowment For International Peace: The Bharatiya Janata Party “Has Always Had Two Objectives: Advancing Hindu Nationalism And Reforming The Economy. There Was This Feeling That These Two Things Had Equal Weight, But That Is Now Dissipating And Creating A Lot Of Whiplash In Corridors Across Washington.”

But When Did The BJP Had The Objective To Reform The Economy? Not Under Modi, Who Has Actually Been Accused Of Reviving Socialist Practices. Vaishnav’s View Is In Fact Blind Acceptance Of Leftist Theory.

Anybody The Left Hates, It Calls ‘Rightwing.’ Since The Left Hates The BJP, It Becomes Rightwing.

Suppression And Ignorance Of Facts And Conceptual Bloomers Define The MSM Coverage Of India. The Result Is Gobbledygook.