Follow Us
Umesh Upadhyay, a seasoned television journalist and media executive recently launched his book ‘Western Media Narratives on India: From Gandhi to Modi’ which explores how cultural imperialism influences the Third-World nations.
Upadhyay is a veteran journalist and communicator with four decades of experience in print, radio, TV and digital media. Transitioning from a ground reporter to a seasoned editor, he has worked across a diverse range of news networks including Press Trust of India, All India Radio, DD, Network18 and Zee News.
Focussed on India, this narrative spans from the nation's independence in 1947 to the present day, scrutinising the relentless targeting of Indian leadership by the dominant Western English media.
Elaborating about his book, he said, “If I were to tell you in one sentence that this book is about the colonisation of minds. It talks about how Western media is an important tool and instrument to further this colonisation of mind.”
And Upadhyay says in his book that actually, if you see, Western media's genesis per se is with the imperialist conquests. So Western media itself is a product of imperialism and as a product of imperialism, its job is to further nurture this.
“After the Second World War, the physical subjugation of developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America was not possible. But has imperialism ended? No. In various forms, this imperialist conquest of the rest of the world continues in economy, politics, culture, cinema, film, and there, Western media works as an instrument to further this subjugation,” he added.
Furthermore, the impact of this is not just on young generations but every part and parcel of society. The loss is irreparable because foreign media may have damaged history in a way or two by misrepresenting India in some of the news.
Stating an example, Upadhyay shared an incident, “Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the president of our Prime Minister of India and he was visible in England. So we deployed troops on the Pakistan border. Western media started saying that India was looking for war. India was painted as somebody who was looking for war.”
Ultimately, India was pressured to withdraw those troops. So it impacts us, it impacts our policy, it impacts our public opinion, it impacts us as a nation.
The author thinks that, it is high time we Indians realise that anything coming from the West is not your world. There is an agenda. there are biases, there are preconceived notions about India, Indians, and India's leadership.
Looking at the positive side, Upadhyay believes we have almost covered half the distance to a better future in the sense that we are discussing and talking about such matters. Indians are no more enamoured by the West as they were.