The Newsclick case: ‘Saving’ India from China, by becoming more like China?

This issue of the newsletter looks at the unfolding – and troubling - case involving the Indian news website Newsclick, whose journalists have been detained and questioned this week with police officials in India claiming – and this is a very serious claim that is yet to be proven – the news website was involved in a “terrorism” related case and conspiracy involving funding linked to China.

This newsletter will break down what we know so far.  A note to preface this post: We have had little concrete information but lots of innuendo in over two years since the allegations first surfaced – which raises many troubling questions in of itself.  When the allegations surfaced in 2021 regarding funding with links to China, my initial sense was it would be prudent to keep an open mind rather than jump to conclusions at the time of the government targeting an ‘unfriendly’ media organisation, being very mindful as I was of the real dangers of accepting Chinese funding* against the backdrop of increasingly aggressive Chinese information campaigns – which I will discuss below. (*Note: Neither Indian authorities nor the New York Times report cited by them that refers to Chinese propaganda campaigns - more on that below - have made the case that Newsclick is being funded *by China*. This appears to be funding from Neville Roy Singham - more on him and his close ties with Beijing below - who has very deep pockets and whose views appear to be aligned with China’s on many issues given his ideological moorings. This is not the same as being funded by China, which is a distinction that’s being blurred.)

At the same time, it cannot be overstated enough that facts are sacred and we should resist the temptation of innuendo being used to target journalists. That’s what authoritarian regimes do and this should have no place in any country with the rule of law. In the past year, we have nowhere had enough facts to back up the claims. As more facts emerge – if they do – to back up claims of a dangerous conspiracy, I will be sure to revisit those in subsequent issues of this newsletter.

Having said that, on to the post, in which I look at how the Indian government has handled this case, why it reminds me in many ways of Beijing’s approach to voices it doesn’t like, and why I think it what the Modi government seems to be doing is claiming to be “saving” India from China by, ironically and sadly, trying to make India more like China.

My colleagues at The Hindu report today on the “terrorism” charges being levelled at the website:

The source said that the fresh terror case registered by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police was being investigated by multiple agencies… Another official said they were probing if the foreign funds were being used for “information warfare.” The ED [Enforcement Directorate] had accused the company of money laundering, claiming that the portal received ₹77 crore as foreign remittance between the years 2018-21.

Comment: This is one important fact that has emerged so far and I first saw this being raised more than two years ago, in July 2021. If there is a solid money laundering charge as the ED believes, then that is something the promoters and financiers need to answer for if they have broken the law in any way. It’s puzzling though that a seemingly straightforward case of illegal foreign funding has taken 2+ years for the authorities to establish? Also, at the same time, surely this is certainly not something that merits seizing the computers of reporters who work for the said organisation if at the heart of the matter is an issue about finances?

More from the The Hindu’s report:

Regarding the interrogation conducted for over six hours of 46 “suspects” on Tuesday, a senior police officer said they questioned the suspects — including contributors, employees and consultant on how their association began with NewsClick and how they are associated currently.

“We asked them regarding what kind of money NewsClick paid, and what kind of reportage and stories they have done across years,” he said. The officer later said, the police specifically asked them about all big events and protests they have covered and been a part of. The phones and laptops of all the employees, contributors and consultants of the news portal were seized by the police.

Police had on August 17 registered a case under Sections 13, 16, 17, 18 and 22 of the anti-terror UAPA pertaining to unlawful activities, raising of funds for a terrorist act, threatening witness and Sections 153 A and 120 B of the IPC (promoting religious enmity between groups on grounds of religion and criminal conspiracy respectively).

Some more details from The Hindu’s report on Wednesday about the raids:

Police raided the homes and offices of journalists, authors, academics, contributors and a satirist associated with the news portal in a terrorism case. The journalists were asked questions about the Delhi communal riots and the CAA agitation of 2019-20, the farmers protest of 2020-21 and whether they used encrypted messaging applications such as Signal on their phones. The phones and laptops of all the employees, contributors and consultants of the news portal were seized. The searches and arrests were done in a fresh case registered on August 17, under India’s draconian anti-terror law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. Details of the case are not known.

From The Hindu’s editorial today:

The trigger for the set of actions now is apparently an article in The New York Times that questioned the motives of an investor in NewsClick and alleged his proximity to the Chinese government, but it did not point to any specific article on the site that amounted to illegal propaganda against India. Government representatives first engaged in a systematic vilification and disinformation campaign against the site based on this article. Tuesday’s actions seem driven by an impulse to scapegoat a media outlet and to bring about, therefore, a chilling effect on critical journalism. No government can or should so brazenly target journalists solely based on suspicion about its funding and thereby undermine the freedom of expression, which is guaranteed under the Constitution.

A brief word here on the unwitting role of the New York Times in all of this. The editorial refers to this report from the NYT on Neville Roy Singham:

What is less known, and is hidden amid a tangle of nonprofit groups and shell companies, is that Mr. Singham works closely with the Chinese government media machine and is financing its propaganda worldwide.

From a think tank in Massachusetts to an event space in Manhattan, from a political party in South Africa to news organizations in India and Brazil, The Times tracked hundreds of millions of dollars to groups linked to Mr. Singham that mix progressive advocacy with Chinese government talking points.

The report had one reference to Newsclick, as reporters Mara Hvistendahl, David A. Fahrenthold, Lynsey Chutel and Ishaan Jhaveri wrote: “In New Delhi, corporate filings show, Mr. Singham’s network financed a news site, NewsClick, that sprinkled its coverage with Chinese government talking points.”

Here is one such video that certainly looks like a CPC promotional video to me, despite Newsclick yesterday denying it carried Chinese propaganda:

Comment: I did, however, find it peculiar that Mara Hvistendahl, David A. Fahrenthold, Lynsey Chutel and Ishaan Jhaveri didn’t bother seeking a comment from Newsclick on their funding from China or ties to Neville Roy Singham. I am fairly certain that if this was a U.S. news website, they would have given them the opportunity to respond. Another thought: if Neville Roy Singham is financing terrorism or serious conspiracies in India, I also wonder if Indian diplomats have raised this diplomatically with the U.S. - he is a citizen - or with China, where he resides - in the past two years? To my knowledge, they haven't.

---

Two final thoughts:

On the issue of Chinese disinformation: The NYT piece points to what I referred to at the top of this issue on increasingly ambitious and well-funded attempts by China to shape the narrative abroad, including through their fellow travellers in Leftist media organisations (which Newsclick could perhaps crudely be characterised as) who for ideological reasons tend to only praise China and entirely ignore - and even defend - the same human rights violations and suppression of minorities they highlight at home. These information campaigns have also been directed at Indian audiences as I have reported previously including by funding Indian reporters on fellowships in China which aren’t disclosed in reporting. You can read about that here.

Monitoring investment from China into all Indian companies including into news organisations - which I flagged in this Brookings India report in 2020 - was something the Modi government missed the bus on as it went all out courting Chinese investment from 2014-2019, when it rose to record levels and without any monitoring, until Press Note Three in April 2020 which brought a stop to it. In my view, it would be extremely ill-advised for any news organisation to accept funding without due diligence and as far as Neville Roy Singham is concerned, there are clearly many red flags - no pun intended.

On India’s handling of the matter: What I found telling in the reports so far is the concern of Indian authorities seems less about the Chinese propaganda than the coverage of real issues in India. As this report says:

NewsClick journalists who were raided by Delhi Police on Tuesday in connection with a probe into the news portal's alleged foreign funding, were questioned on whether they had reported on matters like the 2020 Delhi riots, the farmers’ protest against the Narendra Modi government’s farm laws and the COVID-19 crisis.

Senior journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta told reporters after he was released that he was asked if he had called a US phone number which belongs to his brother-in-law and if he uses the Signal messaging app. He was also asked if he had covered the Delhi riots in 2020 and the farmers’ protest against the Centre's three contentious farm laws.

With regards to Delhi riots, Thakurta said he didn't cover it. "They asked me whether I reported on farmers protests. I said yes. There were many people questioning me. All of them asked different questions,” he said.

A junior member of NewsClick's editorial team, whose house was also raided, told The Wire that she was asked if she was “paid extra” for stories on the farmers’ protest and the Delhi riots. “They also wanted to know why I wrote stories against the country and government. They had no follow up questions, just a performa that they were reading from,” the employee told The Wire.

There was also this: officials raised the website violating India’s sovereignty through maps:

The Delhi Police has accused NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha -- arrested in a case filed under anti-terror law UAPA following charges that the portal received money to spread pro-China propaganda -- saying that the news portal pushed a "global agenda" to show that Arunachal Pradesh and Kashmir are not part of India, a report said.

There is a danger here of conflating these two issues. The framing of covering protests in India as foreign propaganda leaves me with the inescapable feeling of having seen this film before. “Hostile foreign forces” is, to borrow from Beijing’s playbook, the only reason why some Chinese writers and dissidents write about Tibet or Xinjiang or Hong Kong. Surely, Beijing reasons, they could not have done so out of their own volition and are only raising issues at the behest of the West. Any and all dissent, by definition, has to be a foreign conspiracy. As I said at the start of this post, my initial sense was it would be prudent to keep an open mind rather than dismiss the investigation into financial dealings out of hand. But unfortunately, two years on, we aren’t seeing a case being prosecuted on the basis of laws which leaves you with the unfortunate conclusion, for now at least, that the government seems to think the best way to protect India from this ‘China conspiracy’ is, well, to make India a little more like China.

---