Recently, the Election Commission of India admitted to their mistakes in organizing the elections. Besides the weather conditions, the one mistake particularly highlighted was the issue of narrative manipulation. ANI shares clip of CEC Shri Rajiv Kumar on X (formerly Twitter):
Further, recently Sidhant Sibal of WIONews also shared reports of Israeli and Chinese firms interfering in the elections to post pro-INC and anti-BJP content, particularly with the assistance of LLM AI programs.
The road to election interference
What has made this situation worse is the internal interference; along with many outsiders, 13 citizens of Bharat, which included both men and women, from Kerala, West Bengal and even the YouTube HQ in Mumbai, are being investigated. Netizens report seeing a surge of video recommendations from channels like Samdhish, Dhru Rathee, Quint, Bloomberg, and other way more niche channels despite not following politics at all.
Election interference report by Disinfo Labs
All of this points to a disturbing, yet normalized trend: that Bharat’s elections are not as free and fair as we once thought they were. While foreign interference and support to rebel groups has happened throughout history since time immemorial, the transparency of the same has increased and people are more informed through the internet today.
Asia’s first Disinfo organization, Disinfo Labs, recently posted a report mapping the trail of collaboration between these organizations. The full report can be read here.
The culprits
First, the Israeli company STOIC has been using OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT) to generate news which was anti-Hamas, anti-Qatar and anti-BJP, as well as being pro-Israel.
These narratives were disseminated from various news platforms which included the BBC, Al-Jazeera, New York Times, Reuters, The Wire, Financial Times, Columbia Journalism Review and La Croix.
The new big player, surprisingly, is the French, where several narratives around the country were spun and published.
The narrative spun by almost all these entities is almost always the same, although their coordination and research has only improved. There is a staggering amount of coordination which focuses on caste census, dividing Bharatians amongst castes, spreading fear against the second largest majority and consolidating the said majority, and so on. This interference is also something Shri Rajiv Malhotra had predicted in his book Snakes In The Ganga in 2022.
The French Connection Indian Kingdom (excuse the pun) here seems to be Christopher Jaffrelot, an anti–Sanatani French-origin American “Indo”logist. His divisive work on caste has been heavily criticized by the decolonial Indic academia, and is also the basis for much of the political campaign we see Rahul Gandhi partake in today. Meanwhile, Jaffrelot’s work is also what many French outlets (Disinfo Labs India counts at least 7) have quoted in their articles, with several of them writing multiple pieces at once citing his work.
The report by Disinfo labs also links the CIA, the intelligence service of the United States of America, as part of this misinformation campaign against the BJP.
As Israel is traditionally the ally of the USA, it may further explain the connection between the two countries which is both religious and political.
The report also goes over how the discussion of the caste census was not entirely organic, but guided by an invisible hand of monetary and financial powers.
As usual, the same suspects emerge, with collaborators inside prestigious universities such as Ashoka University.
So what can be inferred from this report?
Inference and conclusion: future for democracies in the post-interference future
Bharat is often talked about as the bridge country between China and the USA, or the bridge civilization between the East and the West. Many see Bharat as a country which can call out wrong and call out evil from both sides, whether it is the East or the West.
This ability has been at best displayed with Bharat able to take a stand supporting Russia during the Russo-Ukraine war (despite Russia being an ally of China), and taking a stand with Israel when the horrific October 7th attacks happened (despite Israel being an ally of the USA). Despite these two polarizing choices, Bharat has been able to support both Ukraine and Palestine when their original pick is in the wrong.
Naturally, this gives both the USA as well as China an opportunity to come together and attempt to undermine the credibility that Bharat has built as a “third leg” in global diplomacy. However, Bharat has not fostered its global relationship with other countries in Africa, South America, and so on, with a guiding hand from either China or the USA; it has fostered these relationships on its own. Even traditional enemies like Maldives and Turkiye have received aid when in need.
A further revival of indigenous cultures across the globe will strengthen the countries of the world in terms of their culture and this independence would trickle into their economy. This aligns with Bharat’s vision of achieving a multi-polar world, one where every nation can rediscover its civilizational roots and stand as independent equals on the world stage without compromising its uniqueness.
As the world moves towards redefining itself in a post-colonial era, those who want to return the world to colonization will try to redefine the world in their own way. Bharat must be the one to show the path of defining a post-colonial with a decolonial attitude. As we approach our ambitions of being a vishwaguru, our sights must be on delivering historical justice to the rest of the world as well.
