[🇧🇩] Disinformation/Misinformation about Bangladesh in National/International Media

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Politics of Indian propaganda regarding Bangladesh

Indian news outlets and social media platforms have been spreading various types of disinformation about the persecution of religious minorities in Bangladesh.

www.thedailystar.net

Politics of Indian propaganda regarding Bangladesh

In 2016, religious zealots physically assaulted over 100 people and vandalised and looted over 100 homes and 17 temples of the Hindu community in Nasirnagar, Brahmanbaria. FILE PHOTO: AMRAN HOSSAIN

Ever since the fall of the Bangladeshi dictator Sheikh Hasina in the student-citizen uprising of July-August, Indian news outlets and social media platforms have been spreading various types of disinformation about the persecution of religious minorities in Bangladesh. The disinformation includes portraying attacks on Awami League (AL) leaders as attacks on Hindus, arson attacks on AL offices as burning of temples, spreading images of past attacks or fires as images of recent events etc.

According to an investigation by Rumor Scanner, a Bangladeshi fact-checking organisation, as many as 49 Indian media outlets spread at least 13 false reports about Bangladesh between August 12 and December 5, 2024. Out of this, Republic Bangla has propagated a maximum of five rumours. The Hindustan Times, Zee News, and Live Mint each spread three false reports. Meanwhile, Republic, India Today, ABP Anand, and Aaj Tak each broadcasted two false reports. The remaining 41 media outlets spread one false report each.

The rumours spread by these Indian media, according to Rumor Scanner, included: a fake letter from Sheikh Hasina after her resignation; a video of a Muslim man falsely claimed as Hindu during a search for his son; false reports about Bangladesh's Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus's health and location; baseless claims of withdrawal of bans on militant groups; arms smuggling via a ship from Pakistan; misrepresentation of lawyer Saiful Islam's murder; alleged ban on Indian TV channels; idol immersion in India misrepresented as a reaction to attacks on Hindu idols in Bangladesh; an alleged attack on a Shyamoli Paribahan bus from India; and false UK travel advisories for Bangladesh.

The political motive behind Indian propaganda on the allegations of minority persecution in Bangladesh can be understood by looking at the statistics of attacks on minorities during the previous Awami League government led by Sheikh Hasina. As many as 3,679 attacks on the Hindu community took place in the nine years, between January 2013 and September 2021, according to a compilation of data from the annual reports of the human-rights organisation Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK) during that period. The attacks included vandalism and setting fire to 559 houses and 442 shops and businesses of the Hindu community. At least 1,678 cases of vandalism and arson attacks on Hindu temples, idols and places of worship were also reported in the same period.

Recent ASK data shows the number of attacks on minorities in 2022 and 2023 was 12 and 22, respectively, and between January to July 2024, there were 28 such attacks. The attacks are random in nature, influenced by various local and national political and economic factors. For example, during the first six months of 2024 when Sheikh Hasina was in power, attacks on minorities in January, February and March were 10, seven and four, respectively, while incidents of attack in April, May and June were zero, three and three, respectively. It must be noted that news reports are one of the sources of ASK data.

After the current interim government assumed responsibility, there were 10 and 11 attacks on minorities in September and October 2024, respectively, based on ASK statistics. A year ago in September and October 2023, there were eight and three attacks. But three years ago, in just three days of October 2021, while Hasina was in power, 70 puja venues, 30 homes and 50 shops were vandalised, torched and looted in different parts of the country. The Hindu community faced the highest number of attacks in 2014; as many as 761 Hindu homes, 193 businesses and 247 temples and places of worship were attacked that year.

Therefore, attacks on minority groups in Bangladesh have not started suddenly after the fall of Sheikh Hasina. Over the years, various motives—from land grabbing to local political conflicts and even posts about religion on Facebook—led to attacks on the Hindu community and sometimes other marginalised groups in Bangladesh. Of course, these are very sad and unacceptable incidents and many Bangladeshis are fighting and protesting against these attacks, just like many Indians protest attacks on minorities in their country. However, an important difference between the situation in Bangladesh and India is that there is no communal political party in power in Bangladesh like India's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which itself is accused of patronising communal violence.

Now the question is, why have the Indian Hindutva groups, engaged in attacking and torturing the minority population in their own country because of communal hatred, suddenly become so agitated about the allegations of minority persecution in Bangladesh? What was their reaction when the Hindu community was regularly attacked during Sheikh Hasina's regime? Did they attack the High Commission of Bangladesh in India then as they recently did in Agartala? Did they stop the export of onions and potatoes to Bangladesh and urge the United Nations to send peacekeeping forces to Bangladesh?

In fact, all this is being done for political gain by creating communal tension. On the one hand, the Indian ruling class cannot accept the painful reality of losing dominance over Bangladesh after Hasina's fall. India's various strategic interests such as road, sea and rail transit through Bangladesh, using the Bangladeshi seaports, hydropower transmission from their northeastern to the southern, western and northern regions, economic zones, businesses in the energy sector etc are now facing uncertainties. On the other hand, BJP and its affiliated organisations are carrying out anti-Bangladesh propaganda in a planned manner to portray themselves as the protectors of the Hindu community.

A statement issued by the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), a human rights organisation of West Bengal, on December 1 is important to understand the political motive behind this. The statement read "the Indian government or the BJP has no moral right to say anything about the oppression of minorities in Bangladesh. Minority Muslims, Christians, and Buddhists are being persecuted continuously in India. Dalits and tribal people are also suffering. Just a few days ago, the Uttar Pradesh police shot dead six people of the minority community in Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal. Many Muslim political leaders and social activists including Abu Bakr, Umar Khalid, Gulfisha Fatima, Sharjeel Imam have been put in jail. By taking away OBC reservation, bringing waqf bill, making uniform civil rules, and digging up temples under mosques, many rights of minorities have been or are being taken away. Thousands of minority families have been displaced by bulldozers in Uttar Pradesh and Assam."

That's why, the APDR stated that the Indian government's statement about protecting the right of expression of minorities in Bangladesh is nothing but crocodile tears. The Modi government has no right to demand equal rights for minorities in other countries by turning minorities into second-class citizens at home. This is just an attempt to spread political dominance over Bangladesh and create opportunities for unfair interference.

People of both countries should be aware and careful about this Hindutva agenda of the BJP and its affiliates. Meanwhile, communal attacks in Bangladesh must not be justified just because India's minority population is being attacked or because Hindus were attacked during Hasina's tenure in Bangladesh. People, political organisations and the government of post-Hasina Bangladesh have the responsibility to bring down the attacks on all religious and ethnic minorities, including Hindus, to zero, ensure that the attackers are brought to book and given exemplary punishment.

Furthermore, the government should take the initiative to debunk every kind of misinformation propagated by the Indian media and communicate it to both Indian and International media. For this, a special monitoring team can be formed to investigate each incident through local and foreign independent fact-checkers and bring out the real facts. Most importantly, unity and solidarity should be enhanced with the secular and democratic people and organisations of India who are fighting against the communal politics.

Kallol Mustafa is an engineer and writer who focuses on power, energy, environment and development economics.​

 

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Spreading false narratives will get Indian media nowhere

Indian journalists should uphold journalistic standards and present reports based on facts.

www.thedailystar.net

Spreading false narratives will get Indian media nowhere
India's misinformation campaign against Bangladesh

VISUAL: ANWAR SOHEL

In journalism, there is a popular saying: if there is a dispute over whether it is raining or not, look out the window to see for yourself.

Since the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh, a larger section of the Indian media has constantly been belittling the political changeover in Bangladesh as nothing but an emergence of extremist groups. In doing so, these "journalists" have been cherry-picking information about what has been happening in a tense, tumultuous time to tarnish the image of Bangladesh, with a pre-determined narrative. It is as if they look for information to fit the story they have already written about post-2024-uprising Bangladesh.

The main rhetoric in the Indian media is that minorities in Bangladesh have been subjected to communal violence after the student-led mass uprising toppled the Hasina regime. There is no denying the fact that homes and businesses belonging to Hindus were ransacked and set ablaze in the immediate aftermath, but so were many other establishments that belong to Muslims. Taking advantage of the political void and lawlessness that followed the ouster, people who had been victimised by the previous regime, as well as those who took the situation as an opportunity to loot properties and some fanatics unleashed a wave of attacks on their opponents or perceived enemies.

While I demand justice on behalf of the innocent men and women who suffered at that time, I will resist the manufacturing of the self-serving narratives that the Indian media is so fixated on—as vehemently as any Indian would do if the neighbouring country was judged by the 2002 Gujarat riots or the lynching of people from its minority Muslim community.

Hence, I request my Indian peers to come to Bangladesh, leaving behind prejudices, and see for themselves how things are before reporting on the country's evolving political and social situations. I appeal to them to stop portraying the country as a war zone. It is not. Things have been improving bit by bit since August 5, and we Bangladeshis are optimistic about reconciliation in a society that has been highly polarised for a decade or more to the benefit of a highly extractive political, economic and bureaucratic system.

This appeal comes from concerns that the misinformation and disinformation that journalists (who crossed over into the territory of YouTubers or activists) are spreading will ruin the potential of good relations between these two neighbours. One particular individual who has drawn my attention is Mayukh Ranjan Ghosh, senior editor of Republic Bangla. He is bent on proving that Bangladeshis are furious against the chief adviser of the interim government. It is a bizarre proposition unless he refers to the fallen political force and its sycophants.

Yes, Bangladeshis are frustrated because they are running out of patience to see a quick fix to the accumulated problems. A majority of them feel left out of the nation's economic growth over the last decade because it only exacerbated economic disparity. The macroeconomic indicators make it palpable. About a dozen banks have been dragged to near bankruptcy by close allies of Sheikh Hasina by borrowing huge amounts of money but never paying back. The capital market is in ruins because of corruption, manipulation and scams. The previous regime allowed politically influential people from the Awami League and bureaucrats, who served their interests, to exploit and distort the system of governance.

People are now suffering the consequences; they are not getting back deposits from the sick banks, the value of investments in scam-hit securities diminished, and commodity prices skyrocketed as inflation kept rising not only because of global tensions but also due to domestic mismanagement. In the meantime, jobs are scarce because the money borrowed from financial institutions on the pretext of business expansion was laundered abroad.

While the financial sector has been mercilessly beaten into the present sorry state for over a decade, it is now an uphill task to bring it back into order. The interim government has been given the mandate to bring reforms, but anyone can guess how challenging it must be. There are other concerns to address, such as rampant land grabbing, pollution of water bodies, and illegal construction of buildings, hotels, and other infrastructure by those who could get away with violating laws for their links to power before the August 5 changeover.

But Indian journalists like Mayukh Ranjan Ghosh tried to push the narrative that people were unhappy and divided in the post-August 5 era. He brought to notice some extreme sermons that criticised our national anthem, vilifying them for their lack of knowledge, but did not say how Bangladeshis around the world fought back against the force. What I hate to see is his depiction of attacks on minorities. Communal tensions have always had a presence in Bangladesh, kept alive by politicians as a calculated strategy targeting elections. Between 2012 and 2021, many attacks were made on minority communities: 2012 Ramu violence against Buddhist houses and monasteries; 2014 attacks on the Hindu community in Abhaynagar, Jashore; 2016 attacks on Hindus in Nasirnagar, Brahmanbaria over a fake Facebook post; and the 2020 attack on Hindu households in Muradnagar, Cumilla, for example.

The Awami League government did not ensure justice for the victims of those attacks, and we did not see Indian media personalities—such as Mr Ghosh—expressing concern and warning the then government against inaction. The Indian government, too, was not vocal at the time.

What has changed then? Mr Ghosh and his disciples will be able to tell. I would suggest one thing though: his yelling does not prove the points he wants to make. He has to contextualise his speeches and research a bit more to elevate his works to the standards of journalism.

Meanwhile, the damage rendered by the Indian media is that they have created a virtual version of Bangladesh as the political unpredictability offered them a good business opportunity with more and more audiences drawn to whatever content they made and promoted on social media platforms. That was feeding into an already tense psyche. The outrage in India expressed through attacks on Bangladeshi missions is inimical to the relations between the two nations.

What the present turmoil in Bangladesh demands is a supportive attitude from friends within and outside towards building an amicable environment for reforms that will help the country achieve equitable growth. We need reconciliation between opposing forces; we need harmony and solidarity to rebuild the nation for the better.

On Monday, during an official visit to Bangladesh, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said India wanted to "carry on where we left off," meaning the disruption in the bilateral ties after Hasina's fall. "There is no second thought about increasing engagements. We see this as beneficial for both countries," he said. I hope the section of the Indian media that is bent on fuelling tensions between the two countries will take note. Above all, I expect them to uphold journalistic standards and present reports based on facts.

Bishakha Devnath is the business editor of The Financial Express.​

 

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Fake videos fuelling communal tension: Mamata

Urges Indian govt to protect Bangladeshi minorities

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Fake videos fuelling communal tension: Mamata
Urges Indian govt to protect Bangladeshi minorities

Mamata Banerjee. AFP file photo

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has expressed concern over the circulation of fake videos, alleging that these are being deliberately spread to mislead people and provoke communal tensions.

"I have already spoke in the assembly [regarding Bangladesh]... Several fake videos are being circulated, and people are being misled," Mamata told reporters in Digha.

She emphasised the need to curb such misinformation and called for vigilance to prevent unrest.

Mamata reiterated her demand for the security of all communities and urged the central government to facilitate the return of Indian nationals from Bangladesh who wish to come back to India.

"We are also demanding protection for everyone. We want the Government of India to act. Provide security to people. Those who want to return, arrangements must be made for them to return," she said.

Clarifying the situation at the India-Bangladesh border, the chief minister said that no borders have been closed.

"Had that been the case, we would have had instructions. We have no such instructions," she said, adding that it was a matter for the Centre.​

 

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India denounced for spreading rumours against Bangladesh

Protesters against Indian aggression towards Bangladesh on Friday blamed India for spreading rumours over torturing religious minorities in Bangladesh after the ouster of the Awami League government.

www.newagebd.net

India denounced for spreading rumours against Bangladesh
Staff Correspondent 14 December, 2024, 01:00

New Age photo

Protesters against Indian aggression towards Bangladesh on Friday blamed India for spreading rumours over torturing religious minorities in Bangladesh after the ouster of the Awami League government.

They alleged that India was hatching such conspiracies as the country could not be able to use the interim government like slaves what it had done in Bangladesh during fascist Sheikh Hasina’s 16 years of misrule.

Protests spread in Dhaka as elsewhere across the country hours after the Bangladesh Assistant High Commission in India’s Agartala came under attack by a group of Indians on December 2 during their protests, demanding the release of Hindu community leader in Bangladesh Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari, now in jail in a sedition case.

The protest for the attack on Bangladesh mission in India and India’s aggression against Bangladesh continued for the past 12 days.

Addressing a rally organised by Jubo Odhikar Parishad in front of the National Press Club on Friday afternoon, Gono Odhikar Parishad faction president Nurul Haque Nur said that Indian media outlets, politicians and civil society representatives were spreading rumours that religious minorities were being tortured in Bangladesh after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina regime.

‘India had used the Awami League like a slave in the past 16 years but they could not use the interim government what they did with the Awami League government. This is why they are spreading such rumours and propaganda in Bangladesh,’ he added.

He said that India continued to deprive people of Bangladesh of waters of 54 transboundary rivers with Bangladesh.

He said that from now on, bilateral agreements would be made on the basis of equality.

After the rally, they also brought out a torch procession protesting against India’s aggression and hegemony.

Bangladesh Deshpremik Projonmo also formed a human chain demanding communal harmony in Bangladesh at the base of Raju Memorial Sculpture on the Dhaka University campus on Friday afternoon.​

 

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37 citizens slam Indian media slurs

Thirty-seven eminent citizens, including academics and right activists, have denounced and protested at the false and baseless reports being circulated in the Indian media about the persecution of religious minorities in Bangladesh.

www.newagebd.net

37 citizens slam Indian media slurs
Staff Correspondent 14 December, 2024, 01:04

Thirty-seven eminent citizens, including academics and right activists, have denounced and protested at the false and baseless reports being circulated in the Indian media about the persecution of religious minorities in Bangladesh.

In a joint statement, they said, ‘A certain quarter is deliberately stirring sectarian tension and spreading exaggerated and false information that religious minority communities in Bangladesh have been facing relentless attacks and persecution, with the intent of achieving their malicious political agenda.’

The statement, issued on Friday by Shamsul Huda, executive director of the Association for Land Reform and Development, noted that these malicious activities were a major obstacle in maintaining and advancing the historic, equal, and mutually respectful relations between the two countries, and urged all parties concerned to refrain from such actions.

It highlighted that Sammilito Sanatani Jagaran Jot, in a recent press release, called for the intervention of the United Nations to protect the Hindu community in Bangladesh, which could not be viewed as an isolated incident, given the context of previous occurrences.

The statement said that there were allegations that a certain quarter was forcing members of religious minority communities from Bangladesh, who were legally entering India with valid passports and visas, to give false statements claiming that they had faced various forms of harassment and persecution in Bangladesh, by confiscating their passports.

The statement pointed out that the prime mastermind behind the unprecedented mass killings during the July-August uprising, now sheltered under Indian government security, was regularly spreading provocative anti-Bangladesh statements, although the Indian government, during the recent visit by its foreign secretary Shri Vikram Misri, claimed that it did not support such statements.

‘If that is the case, why are they not taking any action to prevent these objectionable statements from being spread by Sheikh Hasina and her associates in India?’ the statement questioned.

Mentioning that the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government had already begun investigations into 88 such attacks and arrested 70 accused individuals, the signatories called for swift investigations into all the allegations of sectarian attacks and bringing the perpetrators to justice.

The signatories included former Jahangirnagar University economics professor Anu Muhammad, human rights activist Sultana Kamal, Nijera Kori coordinator Khushi Kabir, Campaign for Popular Education executive director Rasheda K Chowdhury, barrister Sara Hossain, writer and activist Rahnuma Ahmed, and photographer Shahidul Alam.

In another statement on Friday, 53 noted citizens, including journalists and artists, denounced anti-Bangladesh campaigns by a section of Indian media outlets saying that they were actually serving the interests of Indian right-wing extremist ruling party Bharatiya Janata Party, Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha reported.​