Umesh Upadhyay's book, Western Media Narratives on India: From Gandhi to Modi, is an analytical study seeking to highlight the decades-old bias of the Western media in its slanted coverage of developments in India. Starting from Mahatma Gandhi to Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, Upadhyay draws the reader's attention to various narratives built on half-truths by the Western media over time. He traces how this long tradition of biased coverage of India has become more pronounced during crises such as Covid-19. He lays bare how, in its reportage of Bharat, the dominant Western English media deliberately belittles India's achievements and magnifies fault lines and calamities.
The book delves into the historical background of the Western media's perception of India, starting from colonial times and subsequent periods after Independence. It reveals how leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Dr B.R. Ambedkar, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee have been targeted by the English media on various occasions. Upadhyay exposes the seamless manner in which the narrative building by the dominant Western English media continues even in the age of social and digital media.
It is widely believed that the elite of the Western powers have used the media as a tool to target most developing societies, including India. The media, it is said, is used to strengthen the existing geopolitical power balance in the world. A new world information order built on greater objectivity and impartiality is set to emerge, especially when the credibility of some of the so-called leading media outlets has become questionable.
Upadhyay employs a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing on various fields such as media studies, history, sociology and political science, as also a variety of sources such as news articles, speeches, books, studies, research findings and sample surveys to analyse the Western media's coverage of India in particular and other developing societies in general. The book also uses a critical lens to examine how the Western media's narrative of India is shaped by their own biases and worldviews.
Umesh Upadhyay's long years of experience in the media comes in handy to dissect news reports and reveal diverse facets which colour coverage sported by the Western media. This book serves as a handbook or eye-opener to Indian media houses- it gives them food for thought to put Bharat first.
My interest in study of the Western media is quite old. It started when I was studying International Relations at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, in the early 1980s. In the summer of1982, during my master's, I happened to visit Canada. That was when Punjab was going through a very difficult time. A section of the Sikhs had taken to militancy in the state. The former chief minister (CM) of Punjab, Giani Zail Singh, was the home minister of India. Later, in July 1982, he was elected the seventh president of India. As I was in Canada for four months, I had assumed that this news would find a place in local Canadian newspapers sooner or later. To my utter surprise, there was no mention of India having a new president in the Canadian newspapers I subscribed to.
Even back then, Canada had a sizable Punjabi population, so much so that some signage in certain areas was in Gurmukhi. If you happened to travel by Air Canada, there were announcements in Punjabi. Thus, I had assumed that the appointment of the first Sikh president of India would find at least a mention in the local newspapers there, but my assumption was proven wrong.
One day, I finally found a news article about India in the local Canadian newspapers. It was regarding a bus tragedy.
Some Hindu pilgrims had been killed when the bus they were travelling slipped into a khud (a deep ravine). A bus accident in India finds a place in the international section of a Canadian newspaper, but the world's largest democracy getting a new president-that too a Sikh-doesn't. Why is that? This question kept bothering me for a long time.
Over the last four decades, I have travelled to many nations, including the United States of America (USA). United Kingdom (UK) and Canada. It has struck me that India features in the newspapers of these countries only if there is a tragedy, political upheaval or violence. I wanted to study this phenomenon for my doctorate in JNU, but I got a job as a journalist and decided not to pursue further studies.
But the Western media's coverage of India and its impact and influence continued to fascinate me, and as a journalist, I kept a careful, close watch on the coverage over the years.
I believe that the fundamental issue with the Western media's coverage of developing countries like India is that it solely focusses on disasters-manmade or natural. It creates a lopsided image of such countries as crisis-ridden nations. This image is created in the developed world for local populations as well as the diaspora living there.
The opinion of local populations on international events covered by the Western media is very important as it leads to creation of biases and prejudices. Let me quote a case about the Iron Man of India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Sardar Patel is considered the architect of the modern Indian State. He integrated hundreds of princely states into India.
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