An overwhelming section of the mainstream media in India has been failing to perform its basic functions: to report, question and inform. The media has the power to shape events, affect lives and influence the course of history. Its role as democracy’s fourth pillar has come under scrutiny with the ascent to power of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014 and again in 2019. In the last few years, mainstream news media channels have openly and brazenly disseminated disinformation and propaganda. We borrow from Neelanjan Sircar’s definition of disinformation as a form of state sponsored violence: “In the Indian context, the sheer scale of government intrusions and control over the media emboldens it to strategically deploy misleading information — what is often called disinformation — to develop a national narrative supportive of the ruling BJP and Hindu nationalist ideology, as well as to harass government critics and the Muslim…

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