Elections Rigged. EVMs Hacked. India Has Fallen!

Was that alarming?

Isn't that what you're being told by the 'free media' day in and day out?

I know it's a Saturday night. But now that I have your attention, dear reader, I urge you to read on. Stay with me.

You see, it is not just the Western Intelligence and Deep State (led by the US and Five Eyes) that is 'irritated' by the increased assertiveness of the Indian spy-ops. The same is true of their other arm too – the media and narrative-building industry.

All through the Cold War, the adversaries of the US state apparatus (I will use the "US" interchangeably with “West” — you can’t really tell the difference when it comes to their attitude towards India, can you?) including the 'free media' had a free run in characterising, demonising, and patronising the 'un-free' people of the 'third world'.

Why? English.

• It is not as if the other side did not respond. It is just that it did not matter — because it wasn’t in English.

• Be it the Russians, some folks in Europe, others in West Asia and elsewhere, their retorts in their tongues hardly made as much of a dent in the Anglosphere’s carefully cultivated self-righteous saviour complex.

Enter India with the world's largest chunk of (English-speaking) youth armed with mobile phones, cheap data packs, minds of their own, and a confidence that would put the bravest generals to shame — meme-wars are real folks!

The West wasn’t ready for what followed.

• Every motivated propaganda piece and opinion — against India, its culture, its people, its history, its democracy, its economy, its foreign policy, and (now) its elections — is met with fact-checks, rebuttals, and ridicule sprinkled with irreverence in the right amount.

• All of this, in King's English which is often better than that of King's subjects.

• Maybe that is what irks them the most. One can only wonder if they’d stop all of it if we just stopped English-kanging. Maybe if we just let them teach us English, they'll stop teaching us about human rights, democracy, science, and everything else under the sun.

I detract.

Mind you, this pushback is not just against this global elite but also against the brown-sepoy class in India patronised by the former – the in situ 0.5 of the 2.5 front war India faces.

• This election season, from media outlets like the Washington Post and Guardian to science journals like Nature, everybody has shown keen interest in Indian elections – not as harmless neutral observers but as 'benign' partisan participants.

• Aided by the intelligence apparatus of their patron governments, in the last month alone the attacks on Indian intelligence, democracy, elections, economy, and even science (or social science – please figure it out, Nature) have flooded the media space.

We’re getting ‘too big for our boots’ is essentially what they’re saying. Well then – time to get a bigger boot!

• While the Indian internet has responded in kind and so have the new-age media platforms like Swarajya, more needs to be done. While meme-wars have their space, serious journalism has its own. We at Swarajya cater to the latter.

• With brute state support, funding from powerful power brokers, and the favour of displaced Lutyens elite at home, these ‘free’ media outlets have the wherewithal (of all kinds) to go on.

But we at Swarajya rely on you. We sustain, thanks to the support of normal patriotic Indians like you who have a real stake in India, its interests, and its destiny.

• As you know by now, it takes money and resources to take these forces head-on. For us to build Swarajya, we need you — throughout. There are multiple ways in which you can subscribe to and support Swarajya. Will you join us? It will hardly take 2 minutes through this link.

• As the West fails to ‘read India right’, it is time we tell our story on our terms, using our frameworks, and unbetrothed to their prisms.

It is also the time to reverse the gaze. Join us as we do it.