On August 3, Pakistan Consulate General in Vancouver, Canada, went on a mission to reply to a Twitter post in favour of India. Interestingly, they used the likes of Rana Ayyub and Subramanian Swamy to paint a bad picture of India. Angry over the fact that they are not getting any support over the Kashmir issue and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is all set to chair a United Nations Security Council meeting, Pakistan is throwing hissy fits all over the social media platform.
Pakistan talked about ‘declining democracy in India’ using Ayyub’s report
Replying to a post by Michael Rubin, Resident Scholar, AEI, who shared an article on how India has proved its critics wrong about Kashmir and abrogation of Article 370, the Pakistan consulate general replied that steady decline of democracy in India is impossible to deny. Pakistan is already angry since the day Home Minister Amit Shah announced the revocation of Article 370 from the valley. Any praises of India seems to irk the neighbour even further. Quoting a report by alleged journalist Rana Ayyub, the Pakistan Consulate said, “The steady decline of #India democracy is impossible to deny. No number of stories about economic growth can mask that reality.”
The report by Rana Ayubb published in Washington Post talked about the so-called decline of democracy since Narendra Modi became PM in 2014. She talked about the sedition case against Disha Ravi for her involvement in the Greta Thunberg Toolkit case, raids on director Anurag Kashyap and Actor Tapsee Pannu’s offices and houses, and some other similar cases where the government took action against the wrongdoers.
Ayyub was not delighted when athletes, sportspersons and film stars came in support of India when external forces were trying to demonise the nation’s image in the backdrop of farmers protests. She said, “Indian movie stars and athletes are often deployed to promote government policies and amplify propaganda. It helps cement their popularity. So when Thunberg, along with celebrities such as Rihanna and Meena Harris, tweeted in solidarity with the farmers’ protest, the entire powerful ecosystem of government supporters started attacking them for wanting to “destabilise” India” in her report.
Use of Subramanian Swamy’s interview to show India as anti-Muslim
The Consulate did not stop at using the report by Ayyub. While replying to Fabio Massimo Castaldo over his tweet about a letter he and his 15 colleagues had sent to Ursula VonDerLeyen and Josep Borrell of the European Commission over alleged violation of human rights in Jammu and Kashmir, the Consulate said, “Global censure and condemnation of violations of human rights in the #Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu, and #Kashmir (IIOJK) continue.”
When a Twitter user Dinesh Kumar called out Pakistan for propagating a false narrative, the Consulate used clips from interviews of Subramanian Swamy where he talked about how the larger share of Muslims in any country’s population has the potential to cause unrest. Swamy had talked about CAA and said India had done right by not including Muslims in the list of beneficiaries. He said, “The law cannot be blamed for that [excluding Muslims]. This was the commitment we had made over several years, over several governments. We have completed the job.” Notably, CAA provides expedited citizenship to the religious persecuted minorities of three neighbouring countries that Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Hindus, Sikhs, and others are covered under the act but not Muslims as they are in the majority in these countries, negating the possibility of religious persecution.
Other misleading reports quoted by Pakistan
Pakistan quoted several other misleading reports. Some of them that caught the eye included a report by Pieter Friedrich where he compared CAA to Nuremberg Laws. Interestingly, Pieter Friedrich is a Khalistani asset, and he was under Indian Intelligence radar for a very long time, and his name also popped up in the Greta Thunberg toolkit case.
One Arun Krishnan questioned the audacity of Pakistan to comment on democracy. He said, “A declared Islamic state that has wiped out its minorities, and where NO minority can even hope to become a PM or President has the gall to lecture the world largest democracy.” In a reply, the Pakistani Consulate quoted Samanth Subramanian’s report, a London-based journalist who often criticises the Indian government like his left-leaning colleagues.
The report that the Pakistani Consulate quoted drew attention towards the false narrative revolving around Hindu supremacists, i.e. Hindu organisations, including RSS. The report revolves around CAA protests, demolition of the disputed structure in Ayodhya and several other topics but from the point of view of a left-leaning narrative that paints Hindus and the BJP-led government in bad picture.