In this Era of Information Warfare, it’s very difficult to find out the reality. There are many accounts on social media that claim themselves to be activists. In the name of raising their voices against injustice, they spread fake news, half-truth, deceptive and hateful news.
This DFRAC exclusive exposes one such account and its vicious narrative against India. We will analyze the nature of its post and the hidden agenda behind it. This report will also show the pattern in which the account picks any incident in India howsoever small, give them communal colors and use them to amplify hate against India. If any similar incident occurs in any other part of the world, it viciously ignores them.
The POLIS PROJECT
In the bio, this account describes itself as, a “Radical and independent research and journalism organization.” Its Founding members are Suchitra Vijayan and francesca recchia. A dedicated account targeting India the Watch state is a part of this account. Scrolling through the account we can see a plethora of tweets targeting India and its administration. Below are some of the hateful and deceptive tweets from this account. The official website of the account is https://www.thepolisproject.com/support/.
This account claim that it is a small collective trying to provide a platform to underrepresented voices of dissent.
But most of their tweets include biased narratives to target India. The POLIS Project is linked with many controversial personalities. Francesca Recchia conducted an interview with Moazzam Begg. He was detained by the US government in the Bagram Theater Internment Facility and the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp, in Cuba, for nearly three years. He is a British Pakistani citizen who was a member of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda. He is alleged to have connections with extremists like Omar Saeed Sheikh, Khalil al-Deek, Abu Hamza al-Masri, and Abu Zubaydah.
The account also uploaded a conversation with Mohamedou Ould Slahi who is Mauritanian citizen who was detained at Guantánamo Bay detention camp until his release on October 17, 2016. He is a supporter of the mujahideen and was trained in an al Qaeda camp whoc h
Speaking of Radical and independent research and journalism, the majority of the posts are India-centric and communal in nature. Some examples are given below:
Targeting PM Nehru and sharing deceptive information about India and its secularism.
The account tweeted, “India, however, was not officially secular during Nehru’s rule. The word “secular” was inserted into the Constitution long after Nehru’s death and, during his term, Nehru appeased Hindus…”
Reality: In 1947, the country was divided into two- India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The very basic foundation of India is based on equality and secularism. Unlike Pakistan which is an Islamic state, India never had or has any official religion. It was always a secular state since the day of its independence and it doesn’t discriminate against any citizen on the basis of religion. There are many constitutional provisions since the very beginning of its formation that shows India:
- Article 14 -grants equality before the law and equal protection of the laws to all.
- Article 15– prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth.
- Article 25- secures Freedom of Conscience, the right to freely profess, practice, and propagate religion.
- Article 26- every religious group or individual has the right to establish and maintain institutions for religious and charitable purposes and to manage its own affairs in matters of religion.
- Article 27- the state shall not compel any citizen to pay any taxes for the promotion or maintenance of any particular religion or religious institution.
The word ‘secular’ was explicitly added after the 42nd amendment act, 1976 of the constitution but saying that India was not secular before that is misleading as there are many provisions containing the essence. And, the claim that Nehru appeased Hindus, rather than Muslims is baseless.
Creating a minority victim-hood mindset by spreading half the information
The Founder & Exec Director, of this account, Suchitra Vijayan tweeted, “If you are a Muslim in India, even praying is now an offense. FIR has been filed against a woman for praying in the hospital in UP. This is Majoritarian power that delights in punishing and humiliating people. @watchthestate”
Reality: The news channel of which she took reference later clarified that, No FIR was lodged against the lady. According to the police, “no FIR has been registered in this case. On receipt of the complaint, the investigation team was constituted. After investigation, the woman was given a clean chit. But, this part was skipped by her.
- Another example of Stating Half truth
The account tweeted about Hany Babu, “Yesterday the Bombay High Court rejected bail plea filed by Delhi University’s professor and vocal anti-caste advocate Hany Babu, read about him in our Profiles of Dissent.”
Reality: He was arrested for hate speech and provoking violence in the society. His Plea was rejected as according to the reports, he was charged for promoting and expanding Naxalism. He is not clear of the charges.
The account frequently releases Twitter space episodes majorly targeting India.
Biased narrative on Muslim Women.
The account has criticized India and alleged India for atrocities on Muslim Women. But it has not taken any major stand against the atrocities upon Muslim Women in other countries like Afghanistan, China or Iran.
In one post it tweeted, “There are several ways to infringe upon the woman’s right to her body. Revisit this piece by @Naima_Nasir to understand the sordid history of female genital mutilation in India.” But, have not said about the genital mutilation of Uyghur Muslims in the concentration in the Xinjiang region of China.
Moreover, this story was first posted by this account on Nov 5, 2019. And then it tweeted same story by Nayema Nasir multiple times.
Targeting India Media for False Portraying Muslim Women
Targeting India over Rohingya Crisis.
Refugees and illegal migrant are one of the serious problems in India. It is majorly because of the political instability and minority discrimination in the neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Myanmar, Afghanistan or Bangladesh. One such crisis is of Rohingyas’. Apart from other refugees and migrants, more than 20,000 Rohingyas are living in the country.
They were forced out of the Myanmar due to violence and state led atrocities faced by them. This account has criticized India over the issue of Rohingya crisis. Other countries like Bangladesh are also having hard time to deal with such crisis. But this account seems to be okay with the plight of Rohingyas in other countries.
Targeting India over the Kashmir Issue
The account has spread many hates and deceptive information on Kashmir. One of the videos shared by it with the caption, “[India] has forced its will on an entire population of people who always resisted the Indian occupation of Kashmir and right now will do whatever it takes to resist this forced annexation“,
The above video is an attempt to misquote history which favoured the agenda of Pakistan over the Kashmir. As Kashmir was and is legally, culturally and historically an integral part of India.
Another such video was uploaded by The POLIS Project with the caption, “Suchitra Vijayan in conversation with Radhika Jhalani and Misbah Reshi about making of the digital apartheid in Kashmir.”
Apartheid was a series of oppressive and discriminatory system which promoted extreme racism during colonial era in South Africa. Policies included no voting writes for non-whites and strict segregation of black and white. Comparing that situation to Kashmir is absurd. Moreover, this account has targeted India over the issue of Kashmir many times.
Facebook details of the POLIS PROJECT
Account: https://www.facebook.com/polisproject
The account was created with the name of POLIS on 21st July 2016. The name of the account was changed to The Polis Project on 24th September 2018. It is managed from US and Pakistan.
First Tweet:
Timeline
The below timeline of the tweets tells us that the account has tweeted on “India” regularly, the first quote tweet on India is done on 16th Sept 2017. With the graph it is seen that the frequency of tweets on India has been increased with time.
The red line indicates the tweets done on India whereas the grey line indicates all of the tweets done by the account.
Pie chart
The Pie Chart below shows that the tweets done on India by this account is increasing per year. 31% of the tweets on India were done in the year 2022, 30.6% in 2021, 16% in 2020.
Hashtags Used
Below is the hashtag depicting hashtags that were used by the account. It is seen that #Kashmir is used maximum number of times followed by #MeToo, #India
Wordcloud
The below wordcloud shows the words that were mostly used in the tweets done on India. Some of the words that includes are: Violence, Kashmir, Human Rights, Women, etc.
Followers
The Polis Project has more than 19.5K followers on Twitter. Among them there are many verified accounts who follows the account, some of them includes, @suchitrav, @suhasinih, @NMenonRao, @Matt_VanDyke, @Gulalai_Ismail.
Conclusion
This DFRAC Exclusive report exposes the major narratives of this account which includes:
- Picking up any incident of India, giving it communal colours to malign India’s reputation internationally.
- Creating a false minority victimhood mindset by spreading half/misleading information.
- Talking big about the distressing events in India but being silent on the similar issues of other counties.
- Criticising Indian Government and administration.
- The account severely targeted India on the issue of Hijab Ban and alleged India for discrimination against Muslim Women. But this account does not take any major stand on the atrocities on Muslim women in other countries like Afghanistan, China or Iran.
- It talks about discrimination on Indian minorities but ignore the similar issue of minority discrimination elsewhere in World.
- Attempt to showcase India as a state where minorities are oppressed spreading by fake news, half-truth, and deceptive and hateful news.
Amplifying incidents related to India and ignoring other such incidents clearly don’t serve the purpose of speaking about justice as claimed by these accounts. It only spread anti India sentiments in the name of justice. It shows the vicious narrative of spreading anti- India sentiments which is can be a threat for India’s international image. Apart from this, the amount of hate that this account spread, incites communal disharmony which is not good for maintaining a healthy unified society.