Covert Indian operation seeks to discredit Modi’s critics in the US
10 December 2023
Published in: Washington Post
Since 2020, an opaque org calling itself the Disinfo Lab has pub lengthy dossiers and social media posts claiming to reveal the personal relationships and funding sources behind US-based critics of Indian PM Narendra Modi. The Disinfo Lab has combined fact-based research with unsubstantiated claims to paint US govt figures, researchers, humanitarian gps and Indian American rts activists as part of a conspiracy, purportedly led by global Islamic gps and billionaire George Soros, to undermine India. In each instance, these allegations have gone viral on Indian social media after they were amplified by pro-Modi influencers, who at times used the gp’s findings to validate their own posns. Its reports have been cited by Indian officials on TV and presented on Capitol Hill. Despite its reach, the Disinfo Lab does not disclose its affiliation, describing itself on its website as a “separate legal entity” that seeks to offer “completely unbiased research.”
▪️ In reality, however, Disinfo Lab was set up and is run by an Indian int offr to research and discredit foreign critics of the Modi govt, according to three people who worked in the org or were familiar with its estb. While claiming that it aimed to uncover anti-India dis-info, the Disinfo Lab itself is running a covert influence op, they said. The org’s material is among the most widely circulated by rt-wing Indians and Hindu nationalists. The Disinfo Lab’s activities show how the online propaganda campaigns waged by BJP and its allies have been expanding beyond their traditional, domestic aims of shoring up popular sp and denigrating oppn parties and now seek to influence attitudes far beyond India’s borders. Moreover, the org’s ties to an Indian int offr could blur the line traditionally observed by the cty’s security apparatus b/w ops that serve the strat interests of India and those that adv the pol obj of the ruling party, analysts said.
▪️ Sumit Ganguly, an expert on Indian diplomacy and national security at Indiana University at Bloomington, said undermining foreign govts and their officials is “routine” work for int agencies around the world. But *if Indian int is “besmirching American critics and civ society orgs, it would be xing a line reminiscent of KGB tac during the Cold War,” he said. “It would be part and parcel of the Modi govt’s attitude toward dissent, whether at home or abroad.” Disinfo Lab, was created in mid-2020 by Lt Col. Dibya Satpathy, now 39, an in offr who has worked to shape intl perceptions of India.
When the Disinfo Lab rel its first maj report, in early 2021, it created a template for the kind of attks that would be repeated in the coming yrs. The org rel a dossier nearly 100 pages long alleging that Pieter Friedrich, a California-based activist and journalist who has written mag articles and given pub speeches critical of BJP and affiliated Hindu-nationalist gps, had ties to the Sikh separatist mov and Pakistan’s premier int agency. The Disinfo Lab burrowed into California state records to uncover Friedrich’s employment hist, pub his parents’ names and plotted detailed graphs about his social media activity. In a recent interview, Friedrich said that many personal and work details reported by the Disinfo Lab were true but that other claims that he fomented an anti-govt riot or had ties to Pakistani int were fabricated. The attks made him fear for his safety, he said. In 2019, Satpathy penned an article for a def journal analyzing how India used a “carefully scripted narr” to justify to the world an airstrike conducted against Pakistan earlier that yr.
Amid the covid pandemic in 2021, a senior US congressman in the House India caucus received a Disinfo Lab report from a gp in his dist claiming that Islamic humanitarian agencies were receiving federal aid and sending it to Pakistan to fuel T activities tgt India and US, said a congressional staffer speaking on the condition of anonymity to share details of private conversations.