KARACHI: EU DisinfoLab, a Brussels-based disinformation watchdog, has revealed a massive 15-year-old Indian operation, targeting international institutions including the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) with over 750 fake local media outlets and more than 10 dead NGOs, to serve Indian interests to undermine Pakistan and China.
According to the report, the operation led by the Srivastava Group and amplified by ANI – an Indian news agency – under the banner of ‘Indian Chronicles’ was started in 2005 and is still functional.
The report further revealed that its mission is to discredit nations in conflict with India in Asia, in particular, Pakistan but also China to a lesser extent.
“Indian Chronicles’ key objective is to undermine Pakistan internationally. To do so, they resurrected dead NGOs at the UN. They impersonated the EU. They laundered content produced by fake media to real media – and reached millions in South-Asia and across the world,” the report added.
At the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, the operation was used to arrange side-events and demonstrations in support of minority rights, impersonate extinguished UN-accredited NGOs and use speaking slots reserved to various NGOs whose original missions seem unrelated.
Fake media outlets were created in Brussels, Geneva and across the world and then repackaged and disseminated through ANI and obscure local media networks to multiply the repetition of online negative content about countries in conflict with India.
Dead person attends UN sessions
The EU DisinfoLab took a closer look at the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace (CSOP) and found that it had become inactive in the late 1970s before it was revived in 2005.
The NGO revealed that it had been hijacked and its former chairman Louis B Sohn, who had died in 2006, interestingly attended a UN Human Rights Council meeting in 2007. The same person participated in an event organised by “Friends of Gilgit-Baltistan” in Washington DC in 2011.
An entire network of coordinated UN-accredited NGOs that serve Indian interests and defame Pakistan ‘repeatedly’ was found. At least 10 of these fake NGOs were linked directly to the Srivastava family, with several other dubious NGOs pushing the same messages.
“In Geneva, these think-tanks and NGOs are in charge of lobbying, organising demonstrations and speaking during press conferences and UN side-events. They were repeatedly given the floor at the UN on behalf of the accredited organisations.”
Lobbying in Brussels
In Brussels, these Srivastava Group-backed organisations arranged visits for Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to Kashmir, Bangladesh, and the Maldives.
Some of these visits had led to institutional controversy as the delegation of lawmakers were often portrayed as official EU delegations — when they were not travelling on behalf of the Parliament.
“The actors orchestrating Indian Chronicles are directly tied — and again not at all transparently — to the creation of three informal groups in the European Parliament, namely the ‘South Asia Peace Forum’, the ‘Baloch Forum’ and ‘Friends of Gilgit-Baltistan’,” the research said.
Organisations like Women Economic and Social Think-Tank have written articles for fake EU magazines such as EP Today and drafted parliamentary questions to the European Commission.
“These served as a honeypot to attract a growing number of MEPs into a pro-India and anti-Pakistan discourse, often using causes such as minorities rights and women’s rights as an entry point,” the EU DisinfoLab said.
ANI’s role in the operation
Highlight the ANI’s role in promoting pro-Indian content, the EU DisinfoLab said that the EU Chronicle op-eds receive ‘immediate repackaging’ by the publication. The ANI quotes these op-eds as genuine articles from ‘independent media EU Chronicle’.
“ANI — which is considered as one of the biggest news agencies in India — remains the only press agency [that] extensively cover[s] the activities of dubious NGOs in Geneva,” the research added.
