Semafor published a piece on Wednesday about how “India pushes controversial criminal reform after purging opposition lawmakers”, which included insights from The Wire India’s S. Meghnad and the Brookings Institution’s Tanvi Madan. A picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the words “THE PURGE” accompanied the article. It briefly claims that the recent suspension of 141 lawmakers for disrupting parliamentary proceedings amounts to a “purge” and fearmongered about its implications.
For background, the newly formed “I.N.D.I.A.” opposition coalition led by the Indian National Congress (INC) recently caused a ruckus with the intent of pressuring the ruling BJP to debate a security breach of their chambers earlier this month. Some individuals released gas there on the same day that the Delhi-designated terrorist-separatist at the center of the spiraling Indo-US dispute had earlier threatened that something will happen inside the parliament. The investigation into this incident is ongoing.
Considering that it concerns a matter of national security just like last spring’s unrest in Manipur did, which the opposition also politicized to pressure the BJP into a debate despite an ongoing investigation at the time, it makes sense why details aren’t being revealed until everything is known for sure. This time the opposition went overboard, hence why those who did so were suspended, which came after their coalition lost to the BJP in three out of five regional elections last month.
They had high hopes earlier in the year that they’d make a much better showing ahead of national elections next spring and might therefore not have wanted to cause a ruckus over Manipur back then since they knew that it wouldn’t be positively received by most of the public. Now that they lost three out of five regional elections in major states and see the writing on the wall for the upcoming polls, however, they appear to have thrown caution to the wind out of desperation to delegitimize that vote.
These domestic political recalculations are occurring in parallel with the worsening of Indo-US ties due to their spiraling dispute over the earlier mentioned Delhi-designated terrorist-separatist and the Justice Department’s charges against an unnamed Indian official for allegedly conspiring to assassinate him. America’s liberal–globalist policymaking faction is driving these developments partially with the intent of helping their ideological allies in the INC-led coalition discredit the conservative-nationalist BJP.
This confluence of factors leads to the conclusion that those opposition lawmakers wanted to get themselves suspended in order to contribute to their American ideological allies’ information warfare campaign against India ahead of next spring’s elections. As for Semafor’s piece claiming that Prime Minister Modi “purged” them, that usually reliable outlet is arguably being exploited by the US liberal-globalists’ Indian “fellow travelers”, of which Madan is among the most notable.
They took advantage of Semafor to launder their false depiction of the latest suspensions as a “purge”, which came a little over a week after the Washington Post’s information provocation against India wherein it tried overly hard to concoct the conspiracy theory that India is meddling in American affairs. Whether by coincidence or by design in the event that they were tipped off in advance, their piece was also published at the same time as Prime Minister Modi’s exclusive interview with the Financial Times.
The Indian leader rebuffed the liberal-globalists’ most popular claims against him, including allegations that he’s becoming authoritarian, while nevertheless reaffirming this “ecosystem’s” right to “hurl these allegations” despite them being untrue. He also took the opportunity to speak about his domestic economic successes and foreign policy achievements. The Financial Times’ fair treatment of him contrasts with the Washington Post’s and Semafor’s unfair one.
The first of those two deliberately set out to defame his country while the second was arguably taken advantage of by the US liberal-globalists’ Indian “fellow travelers” who shared their “insights” (i.e. hyper-partisan narratives) with that outlet. Be that as it may, the emerging trend is that prominent American media outlets are ramping up their attacks against India and its leader ahead of next spring’s elections, which everyone should be aware of and understand why it’s happening in order to not be misled.
