Add to it the Hindenburg study on the Adani group, which has had a dramatic rise and incredible prosperity since 2014, conducted in the United States. The Adani Group: How the World’s 3rd Richest Man is Pulling the Biggest Con in Corporate History study has had a real effect on India, sending the stock markets tumbling and exposing public sector banks to enormous losses. Thus, we have two narratives about India that have come from the West, both of which are unfavourable. Loyalists inevitably believe that Modi and Gautam Adani are the targets of a vast western conspiracy on Indian social media.
For some time to come, the effects of the Hindenburg report will be felt. The accusations of brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme, as described in the report, are made by the West, so the government cannot completely control the narrative. It is perplexing how the government has responded to the BBC documentary. This documentary did not harm Modi’s reputation among his supporters in India, even in these divisive times. The BBC is reinforcing the perception of a strongman leader by using the programme to present his story to a western audience. In the second segment of the documentary, Modi is shown as the supreme head of the newly formed Hindu Rashtra. Such imagery might boost confidence among middle-class groups that want a strong leader over a coalition government.
Video Courtesy: India Today
Political groups opposed to the BJP claim that focusing on the Hindu-versus-Muslim argument is strategically stupid and that it is more prudent to focus on economic issues such as unemployment, poverty, and the supposed impunity enjoyed by the Adani group. The BBC programme has now elevated the Prime Minister to the level of strongmen world leaders who disregard human rights and discriminate against minorities when it serves their ideological and political goals. The BBC documentary shatters Modi’s image at a time when it’s important to the domestic political agenda to portray him as a respected worldwide figure.
This documentary makes it abundantly evident that the world is interested in Modi because of the position he has, not because they think he is a good example to follow. If we connect the western narratives about India since Independence, they would start with M. K. Gandhi and nonviolent protests and end with India’s current image as a democracy with flaws where a very powerful leader is in charge and violence against minorities is pervasive in word, deed, and symbolism.
However, as long as its own strategic objectives are met, the West doesn’t really care about the rest of the globe. Because if the US President can take a picture with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, who is suspected of giving the order to kill writer Jamal Khashoggi, you can be confident that a BBC documentary won’t do any harm to an elected Indian Prime Minister. India plays a part in the long-term counterbalancing tactics against China’s ascent, notwithstanding the West’s current annoyance with India for not boycotting Russia over the Ukraine war.
The Indian government erred in blocking the BBC programme. Perhaps New Delhi had preferred that the documentary be blocked worldwide, but they could only do it in India. In the internet age, even that is inoperable. The study on the Adani Group is still doing more harm than good.
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