On August 5, the student-led protests in Bangladesh that first began in response to a preferential government job quota system and then evolved into a representation of anger toward the increasingly authoritarian government culminated in Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fleeing the country on a helicopter. In the days after Hasina’s ousting, Indian disinformation narratives misrepresenting or exaggerating widespread persecution of Hindus and other religious minorities skyrocketed.

This type of Indian disinformation is not new to the South Asian region. A 15-year disinformation campaign referred to as the “Indian Chronicles” aimed to serve Indian interests by destabilizing Pakistan and amplifying pro-Indian interests, influencing international organizations through at least 750 fake news outlets across 119 countries. According to the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Risk Report, India ranks highest for the risk of misinformation and disinformation due to the virality of online dangerous rhetoric and propaganda driven by high levels of polarization and media distrust.

In Bangladesh, with Hasina out of the country and Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus sworn in as the interim government’s leader, pro-Indian accounts and media organizations seized the opportunity to create chaos in an apparent attempt to destabilize the transitional government by fueling a divide along religious lines.

Blackbird.AI’s Constellation Narrative Intelligence Platform analyzed thousands of social media posts after Hasina fled the country and an interim government was sworn in. Blackbird.AI analysts uncovered several disinformation narratives stemming from Indian State Supporters, leveraging misleading photos and videos and spreading content with hashtags to reach a broader audience and remain in circulation.

Pro-Indian Networks Propagate Disinformation Narratives

Blackbird.AI’s analysis found that disinformation narratives around exaggerated Hindu persecution in Bangladesh originated from Indian State Supporters on social media. These accounts are affiliated with India’s ruling party, the BJP, or are otherwise marked as supporters of pro-Indian nationalistic ideology.

Since Indian Prime Minister Modi came to power in 2014, the rise of Hindu nationalism in the country has contributed to a more polarizing media environment, marked by a crackdown on investigative reporting and harassment of journalists critical of Modi and the ruling party. The scale of violence reported by Indian news outlets that are considered to be mouthpieces for Modi is exaggerated and often misleading, driven by political agendas and historical biases rather than real reporting. Influenced by India’s current Hindu nationalist government, the media may have a bias toward exaggerating or perpetuating misleading claims of anti-Hindu violence in Bangladesh. 

While there have been attacks on Hindu households, these attacks are directed at people affiliated with the former ruling Awami League party in Bangladesh rather than toward Hindus in general. For instance, one disinformation narrative claims that an elderly Hindu man was killed and hung, leveraging a video that actually depicts the body of a Muslim Awami League leader.

India’s BJP has strong official ties to Hasina’s ousted Awami League party, and one of the more prominent voices generating these disinformation narratives is Hasina’s son, Sajeed Wazed, who grew up in India and completed his schooling there. Wazed has been spreading disinformation, such as suggesting Pakistan Inter-Services’s (ISI) involvement in the uprising, asserting that protesters attacked police with guns that terror outfits and foreign powers must have provided, and alleging that India must act before anti-India forces gain more ground in Bangladesh now that the Awami League is not in power.

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This article was originally published on BLACKBIRD.AI and is republished under the Creative Commons license.