Why is there so much anti-Palestine propaganda coming from India?

There is a saying that the first casualty of war is truth.

With Israel’s occupation of Palestine, disinformation often comes with a side of anti-Palestine and Islamophobia, fueled by social media amplification, particularly under the leadership of Elon Musk’s Was.

But an interesting element of the misinformation that has flooded social media since the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 is that much of it has been produced or spread by right-leaning accounts based out of India.

Some of these fake stories include Hamas kidnapping a Jewish child and the decapitation of a young boy in the back of a truck. Blue check accounts have pushed false reports into the stratosphere of virality. One extremely popular tweet, shared by thousands of people, even claimed that the Hamas attack was a US-led attack.

Rise of Islamophobic ‘dissidents’

BOOM, one of India’s most reputable fact-checking services, found several verified Indian X users running the disinformation campaign.

According to Boom, these “disinformation” – influencers who regularly share disinformation – “are mostly targeting Palestine negatively, or supporting Israel”.

He has tried to portray the Palestinians as fundamentally cruel.

In one example, an account began circulating a video claiming that dozens of young girls were taken as sex slaves by a “Palestinian” fighter. However, the video was likely from a school trip to Jerusalem. Despite the relatively low quality, if you look carefully, you can see girls happily chatting and using their phones.

Despite this, the video received thousands of retweets and at least 6 million impressions. Analysis of the accounts sharing the video revealed that most were based in India.

It was also shared in the Telegram channel of Angry Saffron, an apparent open-source intelligence or OSINT channel operating from India. This indicates either skewed intelligence or disinformation intended to exploit the credibility that “OSINT” might describe.

Late last night a false claim was made by Hamas that a Jewish child had been kidnapped. The video received over a million views in just one post. Seven of the top 10 most shared tweets featuring misleading videos were from profiles based in India or included the Indian flag in their biographies.

These seven tweets alone received over 3 million impressions on X. However, the video was from September and had nothing to do with the kidnapping or indeed Gaza.

Islamophobia, India and social media

Many of the accounts sharing these false videos also spend a lot of time posting anti-Muslim comments on X.

An account, Mr Sinha_, which shared a false video of a boy being beheaded by Hamas, also included the hashtag #IslamIsTheProblem in the same post.

This means that when Muslim girls convert to Hinduism they live happily ever after. But when Hindu girls convert to Islam, they are locked in suitcases or fridges.”

Others have been more outspoken in their hatred of Palestine. An Indian account, said to be that of a retired Indian soldier, said, “Israel must eliminate Palestine from the planet.”

It is no secret that India has a problem of Islamophobia, which has increased since the rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

A report by the Australia-based Islamic Council of Victoria found that the majority of all Islamophobic tweets can be traced to India.

The plight of Palestinians has drawn Islamophobes like moths to the light and this can be seen on social media. A part of this online hatred can be traced to the “BJP’s IT cell”, which has fanned the flames of hatred.

To troll critical voices, the social media cell and two affiliated organisations.

Khosla said that he left the “IT Cell” fed up with the continuous spread of “misogyny, Islamophobia and hatred”.

A perfect storm: Musk, BJP and #GazaUnderAttack

While the BJP’s IT cell may have a problem of Islamophobia, it also has a problem of disinformation, and it is reaching into the conflict in Gaza.

Prateek Sinha, co-founder and editor of Indian non-profit fact-checking website AltNews, tweeted: “India is now exporting its disinformation in support of Israel to the Indian mainstream media and social media, hoping the world Now she will do so.” Realize how the Indian right wing has made India the propaganda capital of the world.”

Reducing the flood of disinformation on X following the Hamas attack on Israel.

Western support of Israel, Big Tech’s new indifference to content moderation and the digital reach of right-wing Islamophobic accounts from India are turning the Gaza crisis into a springboard for hatred targeted at Palestinians and Muslims.