Nepal is slowly limping to recovery from the earthquake that has claimed over 10,000 lives and destroyed vast areas of that country. In the immediate aftermath of the quake, India’s prompt rescue and relief efforts were warmly appreciated by Nepal’s people. But the appreciation has turned into hurt and anger, as India’s relief efforts were turned into an insensitive, self-congratulatory spectacle on Indian media and social media.
Nepal’s people took to social to express their anger, with over 100,000 tweets using the #GoHomeIndianMedia hashtag. While it was the Indian media that was the direct target of Nepalese resentment, the Indian Government too could not remain insulated from the anger.
One trigger for the anger was the crass, sensational, and insensitive nature of the coverage. Nepal’s people expressed outrage at Indian journalists asking survivors ‘how they felt’ at the loss of loved ones. Another issue was the fact that some Indian army rescue helicopters were arriving in remote areas, with precious space occupied by Indian media persons rather than relief materials. Also, the Indian media was barely mentioning the rescue efforts of Nepal’s own personnel and common people.
But above all, what was apparent that much of the Indian media was turning their coverage of the disaster and the relief efforts into a giant, over-the-top PR exercise for the Indian Government and Indian Prime Minister. From #ThankYouPM hashtags for Modi on social media, to some channels using Modi’s image with self-aggrandising captions in the foreground while relegating images of devastated Nepal to the background, there were many such instances that turned a story about Nepal’s pain, into one about India’s PM. Modi himself added to this impression with his tweet praising the Indian media.
On social media and media, the Indian relief effort had also become a pretext to grind various political axes. Right-wingers on social media were openly crowing praise for Modi and the RSS, implying that previous Governments and other political forces had never launched relief on a comparable scale. They were also openly indulging in competitive comparisons of the Modi Government’s efforts with those of Pakistan, China and other countries.
This is not the first time that disaster relief coverage was used by the Indian media and political parties as a pretext for jingoism and political propaganda. Following the Uttarakhand floods, the BJP and sections of the media had peddled exaggerated claims about the rescue and relief efforts by Modi, then the Gujarat Chief Minister. With Lok Sabha elections then in the offing, the Uttarakhand disaster was used to try and cast Modi in the role of a super-hero.
Following the Kashmir floods, sections of the media had tried to use the Army’s rescue and relief efforts as an occasion to justify the Army presence in Kashmir and the AFSPA. When Kashmiris expressed anger against this propaganda (much as Nepalese people are now doing), they were branded as ungrateful and anti-national.
Nepal’s people have warned the Indian Prime Minister as well as Indian media not to forget or undermine Nepal’s sovereignty and self-respect. In fact, the competition among Indian media and political groups to claim credit for aid to Nepal, has made India lose respect internationally. Like Modi’s attempt to use the Obama visit to boost his domestic political image, the attempt to turn Indian aid to Nepal into a political scoring point for the Modi Government has backfired. Thanks to jingoistic propagandists on media and social media, India’s gestures of extending relief to Nepal have come across as over-bearing, self-aggrandising and self-serving rather than gracious and humble.
As Nepal rebuilds itself with remarkable courage in the face of unimaginable devastation, its people continue to hope for solidarity and support from the Indian people. We must do all we can to help the people of Nepal, and resist every attempt by the Indian media or political forces to exploit Nepal’s pain as fodder for Indian politics and propaganda.
