Issue Briefing No. 53

How Disinformation Erodes theWorld’s Largest Democracy
Niranjan Sahoo（Senior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi）
February 26, 2024

Abstract
India, despite being the world’s largest democracy, is facing a significant
disinformation crisis, with a surge in fake news reported during the early
pandemic period. Recently, over half the population has been exposed todisinformation, amplified by the country’s vast internet user base. The
proliferation of fake news is significantly driven by right-wing influencers,
supported by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who use digitalplatforms to spread divisive narratives and target political opponents. This
has not only heightened domestic tensions, especially hatred against thereligious minorities, but also undermined democracy in India. Despite certain
countermeasures by fact-checkers and the government, the challenge ofcombating disinformation in India remains formidable.

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Issue Briefing No. 53

Introduction
Recently,

aprominentsocialmedia

analystcalledIndia

thedisinformation capital of the world. This is corroborated by many recent
surveys and reports. According to a recent study, the country saw a record
214 percent rise in fake news/misinformation during the pandemic years(2020-21). A leading researcher from University of Alberta (Canada) who
examined disinformation trends in 138 countries named India as the biggest
source of COVID-19 related disinformation (1 in 6 pieces of fake news
originated from India). A more recent report found that as many as 57
percent of people in India are exposed to fake news or misinformation. In
numerous instances, doctored videos and fake messages are shared on
popular tech platforms, with WhatsApp and Facebook apps often triggeringpolarization, hatred among communities, communal riots, lynchings andsystematic targeting of individuals and groups, particularly vulnerable
minorities.

Importantly,

politicalactorsandparties

areincreasingly

weaponizing fake news and disinformation to effect polarization amonggroups and reap electoral dividends in a deeply diverse and ethnically fragile
country with a long history of communal tensions.

What Makes India the Disinformation Capital?
With an explosive increase in the number of online users and a drastic
drop in the cost of mobile phone data services in the last few years, India
has witnessed a massive surge in fake news and disinformation. With apopulation over 1.4 billion, India has a staggering number of social media
users who employ a range of media to communicate. According to the latest
figures, the country has more than 830 million active internet users. The
most popular social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, andYouTube. As per the latest data, India is the largest market for Facebook(with more than 400 million active users) and WhatsApp (a record 500 million
avid users). With more than 800 million people having smartphones andcheap internet data, India is experiencing fake news and disinformation at
an industrial scale, not seen in any other large nation.
However, the numbers tell only half the story. A major reason for
disinformation

is right-wingsocial media

influencers.

While

political

ideologies of every shade use fake news and disinformation for promoting
their narratives and pushing their agendas, at the heart of India’s
disinformation epidemic lies the rapid rise of right-wing nationalism. Of2How Disinformation Threatens World’s Largest Democracy

Issue Briefing No. 53
course, this is increasingly a global phenomenon where social media
channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, YouTube, Instagram, and Reddit
have dramatically empowered the extreme right to aggressively broadcast
motivated content both globally and locally. In the case of India, right-wing
nationalists have come into prominence since the electoral sweep at thenational level by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014. The
party, which mounted an impressive social media campaign in the 2014
elections to tap a growing online population, and especially youth, has goneon to invest heavily in creating an enviable IT infrastructure, deploying
thousands of trained cyber professionals to connect with supporters andtarget opponents at the same time. The party has been nurturing andsupporting thousands of social media influencers and supporters who thriveon peddling fake news and divisive narratives to help the party reap electoral
dividends.
Studies in recent years have found that such disinformation andpolarizing campaigns help the party to stay ahead of its opponents inelectoral domination. Its IT Cell uses use memes, funny gossip, trolls,sarcasm, write-ups, and often fake videos to target political opponents,specific groups, and individuals who are critical of the party on the internet.
Then its supporters, many of whom are social media influencers, load thiscontent on popular tech platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, andWhatsApp. Disinformation put out by the right-wing ecosystem focuses on
the main opposition party (the Congress Party), Islamophobia, anti-Pakistan
views, and spreading insecurity among the majority community (Hindus),among other targets. While other parties and groups also indulge inspreading fake news and conspiracy theories, the right-wing nationalists’ability to spread disinformation is unmatchable. According to a study ofthousands of accounts by Reddit, while a record 17,779 pro-BJP accounts
were identified as sources of misinformation and propaganda, the Congress
Party had only 147 such accounts. In short, the right-wing ecosystem
overwhelmingly dominates the production and distribution of fake news inIndia. It needs to be noted that right-wing groups’ disinformation war is not
limited to India alone. Over the years, it has spread among the Indian
diaspora situated across Europe and in America.
Further, the Hindu right has made common cause with many far-rightor anti-Muslim groups across different countries including Israel. A clear
demonstration of this has been seen in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Soon
after Hamas’s brutal attacks on Israel on October 7, social media particularly
X (formerly Twitter) was flooded with fake news and misinformation, and the3

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Issue Briefing No. 53
usual fog of war soon reached the highest levels of government in many
countries. However, some of the most explosive disinformation examples of
the conflict had their roots in India, particularly the right-wing social media
influencers and activists. According to Boom, a popular fact-checking app,
as soon as the Israel-Palestine conflict became full blown, dozens of bluetick accounts from India started funneling totally misleading messages on X.
A popular journalist with close right-wing links posted on X about crimes
committed by Hamas including the alleged dissecting of a pregnant woman,killing the unborn child. The fake video post was quickly shared more than
20,000 times and was viewed by more than 10 million people. Another bluetick verified handle with close proximity to the right-wing ecosystem posted
a video on X featuring a well-known Pakistani politician threatening to
obliterate Israel with a nuclear bomb. This post which received nearly amillion views turned out to be a post from 2021. An endless number of fakeposts (even after four months of conflict) continue to be published by social
media influencers with close links to right-wing ideology.
The real question is why there are so many misleading or fake posts
with strong pro-Israeli support from India. This should come as no surprise,given that while India has a longstanding stance on the two-state solution,
the right-wing Hindutva groups have long maintained a strong support for
Israel and a strong aversion to Palestine. The right-wing supporters see
Israel as an ideal, a role model to be followed in dealings with Muslims. In
short, it is Islamophobia which binds together the Hindu right and Zionists.
Thus, a volcano of anti-Palestine and pro-Israel posts, mostly fake ones
originating from India, should not surprise anyone. However, the scale andintensity of disinformation with trending hashtags like “#IslamisTheProblem”
has pitted democracy against Islam, with implications for free speech. For
instance, while pro-Israel rallies were welcomed, many state governments
either banned pro-Palestine rallies or police used strong-arm tactics tosuppress any such expressions of solidarity.
However, the volume and extent of misinformation displayed by theright-wing influencers in the initial days of the Israel-Hamas conflictrepresents just the tip of an iceberg. On innumerable occasions, right-wingsocial media users have openly peddled fake and malicious content,
especiallyagainst

minorities(inparticularMuslims),

withgraveconsequences.

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COVID-19 and the Deluge of Disinformation
While the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 witnessed
a deluge of fake news and misinformation making India the leading country
for COVID disinformation, the most worrisome aspect of this disinformation
war was that a lot of posts were directed against the Muslim minority,
blaming them for the spread of the virus. This was related to thecontroversial gathering of Islamic missionaries called Tablighi Jamaat in Delhi
in March 2020, which many analysts claimed led to sharp rise in COVID-19
cases across many parts of India. Once the news about the controversial
religious gathering was splashed by print and electronic media, a torrent of
fake videos, malicious stories, messages, and conspiracy theories werecirculated by right-wing social media users. A thousand WhatsApp groups
began depicting Tablighi Jamaat as a vector for the virus.
Further, a flood of doctored videos began depicting Tablighi membersin quarantine spitting on doctors, nurses, and other health workers with theintention of spreading infection. However, fact-checkers found this footage
had been doctored by a well-known political party handle to depict theminority community as a vector of disease and thereby to increase
Islamophobic tendencies among the majority community. Nonetheless, thefake news prompted many social media influencers and even celebrities torun hashtags like “CoronaJihad” or “CoronaVillains” that maligned an entire
community for the mistakes of a few. Even worse, many doctored videos andspurious messages were deliberately flooded among the Muslim community
suggesting that the officials were plotting to infect Muslim youth with thevirus in quarantine centers. These messages, coupled with relentless attacks
on Muslims, led to violence against healthcare professionals in Indore andother cities.

Disinformation and Rising Hate Crimes
Among the major fallout of disinformation spread by the right-wing
ecosystem is a rising tide of hate crimes against religious minorities andother marginalized sections of the population in India. The ecosystem, which
spreads mis- and disinformation (communal hatred and bigotry) at anindustrial scale through millions of its supporters and ideologues, has led toincreased cyber-bullying and in several cases hate crimes against minorities.
Hate speech, misinformation, and divisive rhetoric are leading to frequent
communal clashes, lynchings, and other forms of violence at a regular

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frequency. A dataset on VIP hate speech completed by NDTV found that overa span of four years starting from 2014 (after BJP came to power at theCentre), the use of hateful and divisive language by high-ranking politicians
has increased by almost 500 percent. Not a day goes by without some seniorpolitician – a Member of Parliament, minister, MLA, or even Chief Minister –making a hateful comment, be it in the language of bigotry or calling forviolence. What has clearly added to this is the unchecked peddling of fakenews and misinformation through multiple social media and television
channels by the right-wing ideologues and their followers.

Conclusion and Way Forward
To conclude, India’s civic and democratic space is contaminated bya deluge of mis- and disinformation. This has severely damaged the social
fabric and fraternity of a deeply diverse and multi-ethnic society. Uncheckedcirculation of fake news and conspiracy theories including dangerous
narratives that scapegoat and vilify religious minorities is increasing
animosity among social groups. A major outcome of this is rising hate crimes
against the minorities. With the emergence of disruptive technologies suchas generative AI and deepfakes, mis- and disinformation will continue toimpact the health of India’s democracy and the trusts in key institutions.
Given the challenge, fake news and disinformation have become amajor public issue for governments in India. Taking a serious view of themenace, recently the Chief Justice of India slammed the troll armies and fakenews peddlers while calling for effective laws and stringent actions to reinin such destabilizing tendencies. While there is a growing recognition among
the government and other key stakeholders about the challenges posed byunchecked tides of misinformation, concerted actions (including laws) are
far from the current reality. State agencies have mostly been issuingadvisories, clarifications, or sporadic warnings intended to keep people fromfalling prey to fake news. In some instances, state authorities including theCentral government have used provisions of the Indian Penal Code and evensedition laws to penalize and arrest people believed to be spreading
motivated news and creating communal disharmony among certain sectionsof the population. In fact, the Cyber Crime Portal of the Ministry of Home
Affairs (MHA) has issued repeated advisories to state authorities to rein in
fake news. However, these measures have not deterred the violators. Many
structural factors leading to fake news remain unaddressed. Much of this is
supposed to be covered by the existing Information and Technology (IT) Act.

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Taking a serious view of disinformation and recent instances of deepfakes,
the federal government has tabled new IT Rules to curb misinformation.
However, some hope has come from fact-checking vigilante efforts
largely undertaken by public spirited individuals and media platforms. Thisfact-checking ecosystem comprises dedicated shows on television, sections
within mainstream media such as the Times Fact Check initiative (a The Timesof India group venture), India Today’s Anti Fake News War Room, orinitiatives such as Altnews, Quint, and Boomlive that compiled an impressive
body of work during the COVID pandemic. However, these efforts represent
just a drop in the bucket of the disinformation drowning India’s democracy
and society. Granted, the scale of disinformation coupled with diversity oflanguage, culture and politics complicates the task of fact-checking.
Nonetheless, the rising menace calls for multi-pronged governmental andsocietal actions at an unprecedented scale.

Niranjan Sahoo profile
Dr. Niranjan Sahoo is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, aleading think tank in New Delhi. Dr. Sahoo now leads ORF’s studies andprograms on democracy and governance in South Asia. A recipient of the Ford
Asia Fellowship (2009) and Sir Ratan Tata Fellow (2010), Dr. Sahoo currently
serves as a regional coordinator for Asia Democracy Research Network(ADRN), Seoul. He is a Visiting Senior Fellow with the Centre for Multilevel
Federalism, Delhi.

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