Anti Indian sentiment

Historic anti-India sentiment

By the late 19th century, sinophobia had already emerged in North America over Chinese immigration and the cheap labour it supplied, mostly for railroad construction in California and elsewhere on the West Coast. In xenophobic jargon common in the day, ordinary workers, newspapers and politicians opposed this "Yellow Peril". The common cause of eradicating Asians from the workforce gave rise to the Asiatic Exclusion League. As the fledgling Indian community of mostly Punjabi Sikhs settled in California, the xenophobia expanded to encompass immigrants from British India.

Indologists

The relation of "Indomania" and "Indophobia" in colonial era British Indology was discussed by American Indologist Thomas Trautmann (1997) who found that Indomania had become a norm in early 19th century Britain as the result of a conscious agenda of Evangelicalism and Utilitarianism, especially by Charles Grant and James Mill. Historians noted that during the British Empire, "evangelical influence drove British policy down a path that tended to minimize and denigrate the accomplishments of Indian civilization and to position itself as the negation of the earlier British Indomania that was nourished by belief in Indian wisdom."

In Grant's highly influential "Observations on the ...Asiatic subjects of Great Britain" (1796), he criticized the Orientalists for being too respectful to Indian culture and religion. His work tried to determine the Hindus' "true place in the moral scale" and he alleged that the Hindus are "a people exceedingly depraved". Grant believed that Great Britain's duty was to civilise and Christianize the natives.

Lord Macaulay, serving on the Supreme Council of India between 1834 and 1838, was instrumental in creating the foundations of bilingual colonial India. He convinced the Governor-General to adopt English as the medium of instruction in higher education from the sixth year of schooling onwards, rather than Sanskrit or Arabic. He claimed: "I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia." He wrote that Arabic and Sanskrit works on medicine contain "medical doctrines which would disgrace an English Farrier - Astronomy, which would move laughter in girls at an English boarding school - History, abounding with kings thirty feet high reigns thirty thousand years long - and Geography made up of seas of treacle and seas of butter".

One of the most influential historians of India during the British Empire, James Mill was criticised for prejudice against Hindus. Horace Hayman Wilson wrote that the tendency of Mill's work was "evil". Mill claimed that both Indians and Chinese people are cowardly, unfeeling and mendacious. Both Mill and Grant attacked Orientalist scholarship that was too respectful of Indian culture: "It was unfortunate that a mind so pure, so warm in the pursuit of truth so devoted to oriental learning, as that of Sir William Jones, should have adopted the hypothesis of a high state of civilization in the principal countries of Asia."

Dadabhai Naoroji spoke against such anti-India sentiment.

Colonialists

Stereotypes of Indians intensified during and after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, known as India's First War of Independence to the Indians and as the Sepoy Mutiny to the British, when Indian sepoys rebelled against the British East India Company's rule in India. Allegations of war rape were used as propaganda by British colonialists in order to justify the colonization of India. While incidents of rape committed by Indian rebels against British women and girls were generally uncommon, this was exaggerated by the British media to justify continued British intervention in the Indian subcontinent.

At the time, British newspapers had printed various apparently eyewitness accounts of British women and girls being raped by Indian rebels, but cited little physical evidence. It was later found that some were fictions created to paint the native people as savages who needed to be civilized, a mission sometimes known as "The White Man's Burden". One such account published by The Times, regarding an incident where 48 British girls as young as 10-14 had been raped by Indian rebels in Delhi, was criticized as propaganda by Karl Marx, who pointed out that the story was written by a clergyman in Bangalore, far from the events. A wave of anti-Indian vandalism accompanied the rebellion. When Delhi fell to the British, the city was ransacked, the palaces looted and the mosques desecrated in what has been called "a deliberate act of unnecessary vandalism".

Despite the questionable authenticity of colonial accounts regarding the rebellion, the stereotype of the Indian "dark-skinned rapist" occurred frequently in English literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The idea of protecting British "female chastity" from the "lustful Indian male" had a significant influence on the British Raj's policies outlawing miscegenation between the British and the Indians. While some restrictive policies were imposed on British females to "protect" them from miscegenation, most were directed against Indians. For example, the 1883 Ilbert Bill, which would have granted Indian judges the right to judge British offenders, was opposed by many British colonialists on the grounds that Indian judges could not be trusted in cases alleging the rape of British females.

Post-independence

Contemporary Indophobia has risen in the western world, particularly the United States, on account of the rise of the Indian American community and the increase in offshoring of white-collar jobs to India by American multinational corporations. Indophobia in the west manifests itself through intimidation and harassment, such as the case of the anti-Hindu Dotbusters street gang. Cultural theorists have shown that more genteel forms of Indophobia thrive in forums like the editorial pages of the New York Times, and especially in the cliche-ridden and often factually dubious writings of its long-time South Asia reporter, Barbara Crossette.

Pakistan

According to Christophe Jaffrelot and Jean-Luc Racine, Pakistan's nationalism is primarily anti-Indian, even though Pakistan was a part of India for many years. "This is the essence of the country's identiy." Anti-Indian and anti-Hindu sentiments have waxed and waned in the country since its independence. According to Tufts University professor Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, anti-India sentiment in Pakistan increased with the ascendancy of the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami under Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi.

Origins

British diplomacy and supremacy in arms displaced Muslim power which religious and cultural responses from the Muslim populace were unable to stop. Some Indian Muslims feared the Hindu majority that would gain political ascendance after independence. This view was bolstered by religious riots in British India such as the 1927 Nagpur riots. The Two-Nation Theory was enunciated by Allama Iqbal, which was supported by the All India Muslim League and eventually culminated in the Independence of India and of Pakistan in 1947.

Independence was accompanied by acts of genocide and hundreds of thousands of deaths on both sides of the border leading to lasting memories among the surviving refugee populations. In Pakistan, this contributed to Indophobia. In an interview with Indian news channel CNN-IBN Pakistani cricketer and politician Imran Khan said "I grew up hating India because I grew up in Lahore and there were massacres of 1947, so much bloodshed and anger. But as I started touring India, I got such love and friendship there that all this disappeared."

The Two-Nation Theory predicates that the Indian Subcontinent at the time of Partition was not a nation and in its extreme interpretation postulates that the Indian Hindus and Indian Muslims constituted nations which cannot co-exist "in a harmonious relationship".

According to Husain Haqqani after partition Pakistan faced multiple challenges to its survival. At the time Pakistan's secular leaders decided to use Islam as a rallying cry against perceived threats from predominantly Hindu India. Unsure of Pakistan's future they deliberately promoted anti-India sentiment with "Islamic Pakistan" resisting a "Hindu India".

Post-partition

According to Nasr, Anti-Indian sentiments, coupled with anti-Hindu prejudices have existed in Pakistan since its formation. Indophobia in Pakistan increased with the ascendancy of the Jamaat-e-Islami under Maududi.

Commenting on Indophobia in Pakistan in 2009 former United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice termed the Pakistan-India relationship as shadowed by Indophobia.

In his article "The future of Pakistan" published by Brookings Institution American South Asia expert Stephen P. Cohen describes the Pakistan-India relationship as a neverending spiral of sentiments against each other.

In Pakistani textbooks

According to Sustainable Development Policy Institute since the 1970s Pakistani school textbooks have systematically inculcated hatred towards India and Hindus. According to this report, "Associated with the insistence on the Ideology of Pakistan has been an essential component of hate against India and the Hindus. For the upholders of the Ideology of Pakistan, the existence of Pakistan is defined only in relation to Hindus hence the Hindus have to be painted as negatively as possible". A 2005 report by the National Commission for Justice and Peace, a nonprofit organization in Pakistan, found that Pakistan Studies textbooks in Pakistan have been used to articulate the hatred that Pakistani policy-makers have attempted to inculcate towards the Hindus. "Vituperative animosities legitimize military and autocratic rule, nurturing a siege mentality. Pakistan Studies textbooks are an active site to represent India as a hostile neighbor", the report stated. "The story of Pakistan’s past is intentionally written to be distinct from often in direct contrast with, interpretations of history found in India. From the government-issued textbooks, students are taught that Hindus are backward and superstitious.' Further the report stated 'Textbooks reflect intentional obfuscation. Today’s students, citizens of Pakistan and its future leaders are the victims of these blatant lies."

Indo-Pakistani military conflicts

In 1971 rising political discontent in East Pakistan, on the other side of India from West Pakistan, led to calls to secede from Pakistan, which were brutally suppressed by Pakistan Army leading to the Bangladesh Liberation War. India intervened, triggering the brief Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 that culminated in Pakistan's defeat and the secession of East Pakistan which then became Bangladesh. According to Ardeshir Cowasjee in West Pakistan the political and military leadership whipped up anti-India sentiment with the slogan "crush India", trying to convince the people that the only issue in East Pakistan was India supporting a secessionist movement.

Writing for Middle East Research and Information Project Pakistani nuclear scientist Pervez Hoodbhoy stated that anti-Indian sentiment is instilled in Pakistani soldiers early in their training at Cadet College Hasan Abdal and Cadet College Petaro. He also claimed that to prosper, Pakistan needed to overcome its hatred for India.

Recent developments

On November 21, 2012, Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving Pakistani gunman involved in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks that killed 156 Indians, was hanged by the Indian government after a four-year trial. Following this incident a member of Imran Khan's party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) demanded the hanging of Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh in retaliation. Sarabjit Singh later died in the Lahore hospital on May 1, 2013 after being in coma for nearly a week following a brutal assault by fellow inmates in a high-security Pakistani jail.

In 2008 then trade minister of Pakistan Ahmad Mukhtar called upon Pakistanis to renounce "Indophobia" and cultivate trade.

The symbols of the troubled relationship between the two nations are the "Beating the Retreat" spectacles at sundown at the Wagah and Fazilka borders. In 2010 both governments agreed to tone down the rituals as part of "Confidence Building Measures".

Kashmir

Anti-India sentiment in Kashmir is present among Kashmiri people who are opposed to Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir. According to Robert Wirsing, among the Kashmiri Muslims who reject Indian rule, there are those who favour complete merger with Pakistan over independence from India.^[4] Pro-Pakistan sentiment in Kashmir is regarded to be present among Kashmiris due to cultural and religious connections, as well as Kashmiri bitterness over state oppression by Indian authorities.^[5] The sentiment was further augmented by the Indian government's refusal to let Muslim United Front participate in elections in 1987. With the fear that MUF would win the elections, their contestants were jailed while the vote count was being done. ^[6] Pro-Pakistan and anti-India sentiment is also found notably among Kashmiri leaders of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference concerning the legal status of the Vale of Kashmir.^[7] In a statement to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, Sumantra Bose remarked that in a large segment of the population of the Poonch district of Jammu have pro-Pakistan sentiments.^[8]

The Pakistan national cricket team enjoys a large fan following in Jammu and Kashmir. During the 2011 ICC World Cup semi-final between Pakistan and India, a Times of India article observed that Srinagar was "shut down" for the clash, children missed their school and that instead of India, Kashmiri cricket fans showed their support for the Pakistani team.^[9] This support was observed across all castes and classes. India's fall of wickets was cheered with firecrackers. While during Pakistan's run chase, every run was applauded.^[9]The slogan, Pakistan Zindabad, has been used by Kashmiris, who support Kashmir's accession to Pakistan, in the Indian-administered Kashmir.^[10][11] Supporters are also detained by local police for raising such slogans.^[12]

On 13 October 1983, during a limited over cricket match between West Indies and India at the Sher-i-Kashmir Stadium, in Srinagar, the crowd cheered India's defeat with cries of Pakistan Zindabad and Azadi. Indian cricketers were booed by a section of the crowd the moment they arrived for the pre-match warm-ups. The jeering spread across the ground, taking both sides by surprise. During the match, the fall of each Indian wicket was followed by astonishing and defeaning celebrations.^[13] Sunil Gavaskar in his book ‘Runs n’ Ruins’ has rated the Kashmiri crowds as amongst the “worst he has seen in his life”. He also adds, "We were stunned by the change. As the Indian players came into the arena to loosen up and do their physical exercises, they were booed by some sections of the crowd. This was unbelievable. Here we were in ‘India’ and being hooted even before a ball had been bowled. Being hooted after a defeat is understandable, but this was incredible. Moreover, there were many in the crowd shouting pro-Pakistan slogans which confounded us, because we were playing the West Indies and not Pakistan. The West Indians were as surprised as we were but were obviously delighted to find support in their first big encounter against us after their defeat in the Prudential Cup finals,” Gavaskar writes.

On Accession Day in 2015, thousands of protesters in Srinagar staged pro-Pakistan and pro-freedom demonstrations, and unfurled Pakistani flags.^[14]

Bangladesh

Even though India played a key role in the independence of Bangladesh, providing arms and training to the nationalists, the relationship began to sour within a few years. After the 1975 military coup, `Bangladeshi nationalism' was formulated as a new identity, which portrayed India as an adversary. Over the next 30 years, the situation worsened with the addition of further issues of difference between the two nations. There is a general perception of an Indian regional hegemony among the Bangladeshis. Such perceptions were used by the military regimes and the BNP to cultivate an atmosphere of Indophibia and exploit it for electoral gains.

Although a sizeable Hindu minority remained in Bangladesh following the 1947 Partition of India, growing anti-Hinduism caused steady migration into India. The phobia that had grown from anti-Hinduism into Indophobia forms part of ethnic Bengali Nationalism, which continues to mark Bangladeshi perceptions of Indians. Political disputes such as the Farakka Barrage, Indo-Bangladesh enclaves and Indo-Bangladeshi barrier created rifts between the two countries. Persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh by the rising tide of militant Islamists and cross-border infiltration into India by illegal Bangladeshi immigrants created anti-Bangladeshi sentiment in India. Indophobia coupled with anti-Hinduism, led to accusations of dual loyalty among Bangladeshi Hindus by right-wing Bangladeshis often affiliated with the Al-Badr-esque Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh and the BNP. However most of Bangladesh India problems are not based on religion

There was believed to be anti Indian sentiments rising in Bangladesh after 2015 Cricket World Cup quarter-final match between India and Bangladesh, in which, according to Bangladesh fans, "Bangladesh lost due to 'controversial decision' given against Bangladesh by Pakistani umpire Aleem Dar". However that stopped after 2 weeks as Nazmul Hasan talked about it. Shakib al Hasan went to play in IPL and things went back to normal. Also Indian cricket toured Bangladesh in June 2015 and all the world cup controversy have gone out.

Sri Lanka

Anti-Indian prejudice may be caused by the island nation's bad experience with Indian empires (such as the Chola Empire), their ethnic tensions with Sri Lanka's Tamil minority, who are accused of loyalty to India, India's support and training of the LTTE as well as past attacks against Sri Lankan civilians allegedly committed by Indian forces, such as the Jaffna Hospital incident.

Despite India's alliance with the Sri Lankan government during the Sri Lankan Civil War, anti-Indian hatreds and prejudices are fairly common among the ethnic Sinhalese, escalated by Buddhist Nationalism and militancy. Attitudes towards Tamils are associated with Indophobia and Tamils are labeled "Indian spies". Indian traders and businessmen, patronized by the Tamil minority, have been shunned and attacked by the Sinhalese.

During the 1950s, discriminatory measures taken by the Sinhala regime targeted Indian traders (typically from the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala), forcing the traders out of Sri Lanka. Following this, trade with India was deliberately scuttled, as was the sale of Indian magazines.

The Indophobia of that era led the Sinhala government to go after the so-called Tamils of ‘recent’ Indian origin. These immigrant plantation workers were imported by the British more than a hundred years earlier and had already been stripped of citizenship by earlier legislation—the first Legislative Act of the newly independent country in 1948. Since then, these Tamils lived as ‘stateless’ persons and many returned to India.

In 1981, riots were carried out by Sinhalese mobs against predominantly Indian Tamils in Ratnapura, Kahawatte and Balangoda areas. Shops were looted and set on fire and many women and girls were raped by marauding mobs. During the Black July riots, 4,000 Indian and Sri Lankan Tamils were killed by Sinhalese rioters.

Myanmar (Burma)

Anti-Indian sentiments began to rise in Burma after the First World War ended due to a number of reasons. The population of ethnic Indians was growing rapidly in Myanmar (almost half of Yangon's population was Indian by the Second World War). The Indians played a prominent role in the British administration and became the target of Burmese nationalists. Racial animosity toward Indians because of their skin-color and appearance also played a role. Meanwhile, the price of rice plummeted during the economic depression of the 1930s and the Chettiar from South India, who were prominent moneylenders in the rice belt, began to foreclose on land held by native Burmese.

In May 1930, a British firm of stevedores at the port of Rangoon employed Burmese workers in an attempt to break a strike organized by its Indian workers. When, on May 26, the strike ended and the Indians returned to work, clashes soon developed between the returning Indian workers and the Burmese workers who had replaced them. The clashes soon escalated into large-scale anti-Indian riots in the city. Over two hundred Indians were killed and their dead bodies flung into the river. Authorities ordered the police to fire upon any assembly of five or more who refused to lay down their arms, under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Within two days the riot spread throughout the country to locations such as Maymyo.

After Burma achieved Independence, Burmese law treated a large percentage of the Indian community as "resident aliens". Though many had long ties to Burma or were born there, they were not considered citizens under the 1982 Burma citizenship law which restricted citizenship for groups immigrating before 1823.

After seizing power through a military coup in 1962, General Ne Win ordered a large-scale expulsion of Indians. Although many Indians had been living in Burma for generations and had integrated into Burmese society, they became a target for discrimination and oppression by the junta. This, along with a wholesale nationalization of private ventures in 1964, led to the emigration of over 300,000 ethnic Indians from Burma. Indian-owned businesses were nationalized and their owners were given 175 kyat for their trip to India. This caused a significant deterioration in Indian-Burmese relations and the Indian government arranged ferries and aircraft to lift Burmese of Indian ethnicity out of Burma.

Malaysia

Discrimination of Indians exists in Malaysia. On 28 June 1969, rioting broke out in Sentul where Malays attacked Indians, and 15 Indians were killed.

In March 2001, a 9-day communial violence known as the 2001 Kampung Medan riots occurred between Indians and Malays cost the deaths of 6 people and injuring many more people. The severity of injuries range from head injuries to severed limbs. The riots no doubt caused anti-Indian feelings among Malays residing in Selangor and Klang Valley.

The novel Interlok caused ernomous controversial backclash for allegedly being anti-Indian as the book includes racist derogatory terms used to refer to Indians such as "Pariah" and "black people". The novel also includes the usage of the term kasta pariah ("pariah caste"), which often refers to persons from the lowest caste in the Indian caste system.

South Africa

The first anti-Indian commotion that took place in South Africa was the Durban riots in 1949 that took place in the South Africa's largest city Durban, where angry Black Zulus attacked and killed 142 ethnic Indians, destroyed and looted Indian property, and also accounts of Indian women being raped. Many local Whites who were present openly supported the Zulus in their Anti-Indian killings and even participated in the lootings.

Another anti-Indian riot took place again in Durban in 1985

The famous peace activist Mahatma Gandhi experienced anti-Indian racism when he was in South Africa, he was beaten up by a driver for refusing to make room for a White passenger. Indians were also not allowed to walk on public footpaths in South Africa and Gandhi was kicked by a police officer out of the footpath onto the street without warning.

Uganda

The most prominent case is the ethnic cleansing of Indians and other South Asians (sometimes simply called "Asian") in Uganda by Idi Amin. (See Expulsion of Asians from Uganda.)

According to H.H. Patel, many Indians in East Africa and Uganda were tailors and bankers, leading to stereotyping.

Indophobia in Uganda existed under Milton Obote, before Amin's rise. The 1968 Committee on "Africanisation in Commerce and Industry" in Uganda made far-reaching Indophobic proposals.

A system of work permits and trade licenses was introduced in 1969 to Indians' economic and professional activities. Indians were segregated and discriminated against in all walks of life. After Amin came to power, he exploited these divisions to spread propaganda against Indians.

Indians were stereotyped as "only traders" and thereby "inbred" to their profession. Indians were attacked as "dukawallas" (an occupational term that degenerated into an anti-Indian slur during Amin's time). They were stereotyped as "greedy, conniving", without racial identity or loyalty but "always cheating, conspiring and plotting" to subvert Uganda.

Amin used this to justify a campaign of "de-Indianisation", eventually resulting in the expulsion and ethnic cleansing of Uganda's Indian minority. Some 80,000 were expelled, leading about 25,000 to settle in the United Kingdom.

United States of America

In the late 1980s in New Jersey, an anti-Indian hategroup gang calling themselves the "Dotbusters" targeted, threatened and viciously beat Indians until the Indians were in coma and died or suffered brain damage.

Vamsee Juluri, author and Professor of Media Studies at the University of San Francisco, identifies Indophobia in certain sections of the US media as part of a racist postcolonial/neocolonial discourse used to attack and defame India and encourage racial prejudice against Indian Americans, particularly in light of India's recent economic progress, which some "old-school" colonialists find to be incompatible with their Clash of Civilizations world view. Juluri identified numerous instances of bias and prejudice against Indians in US media, such as the New York Times and Foreign Policy.

Canada

An anti-Indian incident happened in Abbotsford after a parking dispute between a White and Indian pair where the White man told the Indian man to “go back to fucking India,” and called the Indian man a “Fucking Hindu". The man continued his racist rant by calling the Indian man a "fucking shitskin".

South America

In countries such as Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, as well as some Caribbean islands, anti-Indian sentiments sometimes becomes violent.

Australia

In May and June 2009, racially motivated attacks against Indian international students and a perceived poor police response sparked protests. Rallies were held in both Melbourne and Sydney. Impromptu street protests were held in Harris Park, a suburb of western Sydney with a large Indian population. Representatives of the Indian government met with the Australian government to express concern and request that Indians be protected. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd expressed regret and called for the attackers to be brought to justice. The United Nations termed these attacks "disturbing" and the human rights commissioner Navi Pillay, herself a member of the Indian diaspora, asked Australia to investigate the matters further.

Some Facebook groups were set up with Indophobic leanings. The Rudd Government set up a task force to address a proposal to make sending a text message encouraging commission of a racial attack a federal offence. The group was headed by national security adviser Duncan Lewis. The proposed amendment would strengthen police powers to respond to attacks against Indian students. Internet-based racist commentary was able to continue because of protection afforded by privacy laws. The current system allows the commission to investigate complaints of racial vilification and then attempt to resolve complaints through conciliation with ISPs and site operators.

BBC

In 2008, the BBC was criticised for referring to those who carried out the November 2008 Mumbai attacks as "gunmen." Again, it referred to the commander of a terrorist organization in Kashmir as a “CHARISMATIC YOUNG MILITANT”. This followed complaints that the BBC expresses racism against Indians stemming from the British Raj. Rediff reporter Arindam Banerji chronicled cases of alleged Indophobic bias from the BBC regarding reportage, selection bias, misrepresentation and fabrications. Hindu groups in the United Kingdom accused the BBC of anti-Hindu bigotry and whitewashing Islamist hate groups that demonise the British Indian Hindu minority.

Journalist M. J. Akbar chose to boycott the BBC when he spoke of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. British parliamentarian Stephen Pound referred to the BBCs alleged whitewashing of the attacks as "the worst sort of mealy mouthed posturing. It is desperation to avoid causing offence which ultimately causes more offence to everyone."

Writing for The Hindu, Business Line reporter Premen Addy criticised BBC reporting on South Asia as consistently Indophobic and pro-Islamist and that they under-report India's economic and social achievements, while exaggerating its problems. In addition, Addy alludes to discrimination against Indian anchors and reporters in favour of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who are hostile to India.

Writing for the 2008 edition of the peer-reviewed Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Alasdair Pinkerton analysed BBC Indian coverage from independence through 2008. Pinkerton suggested a tumultuous history involving allegations of Indophobic bias, particularly during the cold war, and concludes that BBC coverage of South Asian geopolitics and economics shows pervasive Indophobic bias.

In the journal of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, media analyst Ajai K. Rai strongly criticised the BBC for Indophobic bias. He found a lack of depth and fairness in BBC reporting on conflict zones in South Asia and that the BBC had, on at least one occasion, fabricated photographs while reporting on the Kashmir conflict to make India look bad. He claimed that the network made false allegations that the Indian Army stormed a sacred Muslim shrine, the tomb of Hazrat Sheikh Noor-u-din Noorani in Charari Sharief, and only retracted the claim after strong criticism.

New York Times

The newspaper's India coverage has been heavily criticized by prominent academics such as Sumit Ganguly, a professor of political science at Indiana University and member of the Council of Foreign Relations as well the London-based Institute of Strategic Studies. In a 2009 Forbes article, Prof. Ganguly faults the New York Times editorial board for its "hectoring" and "patronizing" tone towards India. He finds anti-India bias in coverage of the Kashmir Conflict, the Hyde Act and other India-related matters.

In 2010, the Huffington Post charged that the New York Times is Indophobic and promotes neocolonialism with its slanted and negative coverage. United States lawmaker Kumar P. Barve described a recent editorial on India as full of "blatant and unprofessional factual errors or omissions" having a "haughty, condescending, arrogant and patronizing" tone.

In 2014, Vamsee Juluri, novelist and professor at the University of San Francisco referred to a New York Times article on public sanitation issues in India as "absurd, far-fetched, and ugly pieces of Hinduphobic racism".

In September 2014, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully placed a spacecraft into orbit around the planet Mars, thereby completing the Mars Orbiter Mission. CNN reported this as a "groundbreaking Mars mission", making India the first nation to arrive on its first attempt and the first Asian country to reach Mars. A few days later, the New York Times published a cartoon on this event, showing a turban-wearing man with a cow knocking at the door of an "elite space club". As reported in the Daily Mail, the cartoon "drew immediate criticism for being racist in content" and a common view on social media was that the paper had "resorted to uncharitable tactics to take down India's impressive foray into space". The Huffington Post said that the cartoon was in "poor taste" and "the racial, national and classist stereotyping is apparent". The New York Times subsequently published an apology saying that a "large number of readers have complained" about the cartoon and that they "apologize to readers who were offended".

In June 2016, the New York Times published an editorial opposing India's entry into the Nuclear Supplier's Group (NSG). During this time the US administration led by President Barack Obama was actively supporting India's membership. The paper said the membership was "not merited" and that India had "fallen far short" in assuming responsibilities of a nuclear nation. This view was criticized by several western and Indian experts on nuclear issues. Prof. Ramesh Thakur, Director of the Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament at the Australian National University, said the New York Times is "frequently chauvinistic" and that the editorial "reflects a deliberate bias". Dr. Alyssa Ayres, a senior fellow for South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, rebutted the editorial, saying "the small community of India-watchers in Washington read these words in disbelief" and the paper "should ground its arguments in an appraisal of the complete facts".

Pakistani media

Pakistani media commentators such as Zaid Hamid were accused by other Pakistanis of promoting Indophobia, particularly Hinduphobia. In an editorial published in Daily Times Tayyab Shah accused him of acting at the behest of the Pakistani security establishment and condemned his views. Along with Lashkar-e-Taiba he is one of the main proponents in present-day Pakistan of Ghazwatul Hind, a battle where Muslims will conquer India and establish Sharia rule according to a Hadith.

Talking to reporters after inaugurating an exhibition in Lahore, Majid Nizami, the chief editor of Nawa-i-Waqt, stated "freedom is the greatest blessing of the Almighty, Who may save us from dominance of Hindus, as our sworn enemy India is bent upon destroying Pakistan. However, if it did not refrain from committing aggression against us, then Pakistan is destined to defeat India because our horses in the form of atomic bombs and missiles are far better than Indian ‘donkeys’."

Some of the anti-India propaganda is claimed to be driven the Pakistani military. In December 2010 many Pakistani newspapers published reports based on United States diplomatic cables leaks which portrayed India in a negative light. The Guardian reported that none of the information reported by Pakistani media could be verified in its database of leaked cables. Thereafter several newspapers apologized. The fake cables were believed to have been planted by Inter-Services Intelligence.

Slumdog Millionaire

The Indo-British film Slumdog Millionaire was the subject of many controversies in terms of its title, its depiction of Indian slums and its language use. The film's title was consistently challenged for having the word "dog" in it. The protest took place in Patna where it was written on a signboard "I Am Not a Dog". Activists stated that slum dwellers would continue to protest until the film's director deleted the word "dog" from the title. The Hindu organisations Hindu Janjagruti Samiti (HJS) and Shiv Sena protested against the film for its portrayal of the Hindu God Rama. The film depicted Hindu society as rapacious monsters Co-director Loveleen Tandan was too criticized by producer Christian Colson. Colson defined her partnership with Boyle a mismatch. Colson noted that the title of "co-director (India)" given to Tandan was "strange but deserved" and was developed over "a Coca Cola and a cup of tea" in order to identify her as "one of our key cultural bridges." During 2009 Oscar awards ceremony, Tandan was ignored and whole credit for film was taken by Boyle. Some filmmakers and actors from Bollywood also trashed Slumdog Millionaire including Aamir Khan, Priyadarshan and Music Director Aadesh Shrivastava.