In a recent segment by Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post, the network once again peddled its now-predictable narrative, that India, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is engaged in a systematic campaign to expel, dehumanize, and erase Muslims, particularly Bengali Muslims. This time, the pretext was the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the deportation of illegal immigrants. But as is often the case with Al Jazeera’s coverage of India, the truth takes a back seat to ideological distortion.
At the heart of the episode is a wildly exaggerated claim: that India is engaged in the “expulsion of Bengali Muslims,” with mass deportations, “bulldozer justice,” and mainstream media complicity supposedly forming the core of a fascist Hindu project.
The host says, “…the deportations are just one byproduct of a larger BJP political project, one that often abandons due legal process, weaponizes citizenship, and has Muslims asking themselves, is there a place for them in India in 2025? Having spent more than 10 years under the rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party the BJP, Indian Muslims have repeatedly been otherred, treated as some kind of enemy within.”
The piece conveniently omits the core fact that the NRC is a legal and constitutional exercise designed to identify illegal immigrants, not to target Muslims. Moreover, Indian law provides mechanisms for redress, appeals, and documentation, none of which are acknowledged by Al Jazeera’s selectively outraged journalists.
Deliberate Omission and Manufactured Outrage
Al Jazeera’s framing rests on three misleading assumptions:
- That Bengali Muslims are being expelled for being Muslim, not illegal immigrants.
- That Indian media uniformly supports state crackdowns.
- That the Indian state is engaged in systemic “othering” of Muslims.
What they never mention is that thousands of Bengali-origin Hindus, Nepali migrants, and even tribal communities have also been flagged during the NRC process. The issue is not religion; it is illegal immigration, and that too in a border-sensitive state like Assam, which has long witnessed demographic shifts due to cross-border migration.
This is a fact not lost on the Assamese people, regardless of religion, who have consistently voiced concerns about illegal influx, a fact that predates the Modi government by decades. But in Al Jazeera’s ideological filter, every legal administrative measure becomes “Hindutva fascism.”
The IndiGo Flight Incident: Where Was Al Jazeera Then?
Al Jazeera’s moral outrage is also stunningly selective. Just days ago, a disturbing video went viral of one Muslim man slapping another on an IndiGo flight during a panic attack. Hussain Ahmed Majumdar, a Muslim hotel worker from Assam, was physically assaulted mid-flight by Hafijul Rahaman, also Muslim. The incident was widely reported in Indian media, with IndiGo banning the perpetrator and law enforcement getting involved.
But here lies the hypocrisy: Al Jazeera has been eager to frame nearly every communal or legal conflict in India as “Hindus attacking Muslims.” What narrative would they have crafted for this event? That Modi is causing Muslims to slap each other on flights?
Not Journalism But Activism
Al Jazeera is no stranger to double standards. While it never hesitates to attack India’s internal policies, even when they are constitutional, legal, and due-process-based, it remains silent on its own country of origin’s glaring human rights record. The outlet, funded by Qatar, a monarchy that bans political parties and criminalizes dissent, has no moral ground to lecture the world’s largest democracy.
The Listening Post’s reporting claims to be a watchdog of media and state power. But in truth, it has become a propaganda organ weaponizing journalistic tropes to peddle soft Islamism, project victimhood, and vilify sovereign nations that refuse to play to their ideological script.
A Word on Citizenship and Democracy
India’s Representation of the People Act, 1950 clearly defines the criteria for voter registration: ordinary residency, not religious identity. Migrant workers, whether from Bihar to Tamil Nadu or Assam to Maharashtra, can register to vote where they live and work. This was reaffirmed recently by the Election Commission of India in response to P. Chidambaram’s false claims about voter manipulation in Tamil Nadu.
But for Al Jazeera, facts and legal frameworks are irrelevant. They prefer narratives that pit Hindus and Muslims against each other, manufacture outrage over “bulldozer justice,” and whitewash illegal immigration by calling it cultural genocide.
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