When Narendra Modi visited Washington in June, Indian cable information channels spent days discussing their nation’s foreign-policy priorities and affect. This represents a big change. The hottest reveals, which encompass a studio host and supporters of the Hindu-nationalist prime minister collectively browbeating his critics, was once dedicated to home points. Yet in recent times they’ve made room for foreign-policy dialogue, too.

Much of the credit score for increasing Indian media’s horizons goes to Mr Modi and his overseas minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who’ve skilfully linked overseas and home pursuits. What occurs on the earth outdoors, they clarify, impacts India’s future as a rising energy. Mr Modi has additionally given the channels quite a bit to debate; a go to to France and the United Arab Emirates in July was his 72nd overseas outing. India’s presidency of the G20 has introduced the world even nearer. Meetings have been scheduled in over 30 cities, all of which are actually festooned with G20 paraphernalia.

Yet it’s exhausting to detect a lot deep curiosity in, or information of, the world in these developments. There are most likely fewer Indian overseas correspondents at the moment than 20 years in the past, notes Sanjaya Baru, a former editor of the Business Standard, a broadsheet. The new media deal with India’s position on the earth tends to be hyperpartisan, nationalistic and sometimes stunningly ill-informed.

This represents a enterprise alternative that Subhash Chandra, a media magnate, has seized on. In 2016 he launched WION, or “World Is One News”, to cowl the world from an Indian perspective. It was such successful that its prime-time host, Palki Sharma, was poached by a rival community to begin an analogous present.

What is the Indian perspective? Watch Ms Sharma and a message emerges: in all places else is horrible. Both on WION and at her new residence, Network18, Ms Sharma relentlessly bashes China and Pakistan. Given India’s historical past of battle with the 2 nations, that’s hardly shocking. Yet she additionally castigates the West, with which India has cordial relations. Europe is taunted as weak, irrelevant, depending on America and affected by a “colonial mindset”. America is a violent, racist, dysfunctional place, an ageing and irresponsible imperial energy.

This shouldn’t be an expression of the assured new India Mr Modi claims to characterize. Mindful of the criticism India usually attracts, particularly for Mr Modi’s Muslim-bashing and creeping authoritarianism, Ms Sharma and different pro-Modi pundits insist that India’s behaviour and its issues aren’t any worse than some other nation’s. A report on the latest riots in France on Ms Sharma’s present included a declare that the French inside ministry was meaning to droop the web in an try and curb violence. “And thank God it’s in Europe! If it was elsewhere it would have been a human-rights violation,” she sneered. In reality, India leads the world in shutting down the web for safety and different causes. The French inside ministry had anyway denied the declare a day earlier than the present aired.

Bridling at lectures by hypocritical overseas powers is a longstanding function of Indian diplomacy. Yet the brand new overseas information protection’s hyper-defensive championing of Mr Modi, and its distinction with the self-confident new India the prime minister describes, are new and putting. Such protection has two goals, says Manisha Pande of Newslaundry, a media-watching web site: to place Mr Modi as a world chief who has put India on the map, and to advertise the speculation that there’s a world conspiracy to maintain India down. “Coverage is driven by the fact that most TV news anchors are propagandists for the current government.”

This could also be fuelling suspicion of the surface world, particularly the West. In a latest survey by Morning Consult, Indians recognized China as their nation’s greatest navy risk. America was subsequent on the record. A survey by the Pew Research Centre discovered confidence within the American president at its highest stage for the reason that Obama years. But unfavorable views had been additionally at their highest since Pew began asking the query.

That is at odds with Mr Modi’s purpose to deepen ties with the West. And nationalists are seldom capable of management the forces they unleash. China has just lately sought to tamp down its aggressive “wolf-warrior diplomacy” rhetoric. But its social media stay mired in nationalism. Mr Modi, a vigorous champion for India overseas, ought to take be aware. By letting his propagandists drum up hostility to the world, he’s laying a entice for himself. ■