Political analysts, fact-checkers, journalists and academics on Friday criticised the presentation of recent student-led mass uprising, which forced Sheikh Hasina to resign and flee to India, in the Indian media.
They said that the presentation of Bangladesh鈥檚 mass uprising in the Indian media was a reflection of the conventional Indian state policies towards Bangladesh.
They criticised the Indian media presentation at a discussion session, organised by July Ganaparishar 鈥� a platform to review the student-people mass uprising- at Dhaka University.聽
Political analyst and young thinker Sarwar Tusher delivered the gist of his essay on presentation of the uprising in Indian media.
In the essay, he described the Indian media presentation dividing it in two phases 鈥攖he period during the student-led mass uprising and the post mass uprising period.
Tusher said that there were similarities between the narrative of the Bangladesh Awami League and the presentation of the Indian media about protests during the movement.
He also said that Indian media mainly published the narrative of AL government considering it to be the only truth cornering the narrative of the protesters during the movement.
Referring to reports and articles published in the Indian media, Tusher said that the debate about using 鈥楻ajakar鈥� word in Awami discourse and in the Indian media discourse was not different.
He said that the Indian media denounced the student-led mass uprising and the Hasina鈥檚 fall was shown as a result of military coup in their presentation.
Tusher also said that Indian media spread propaganda about attacks on Hindu people presenting those as sectarian violence and condemned the propaganda to present the post mass uprising period as the surge of Islamists in Bangladesh.
Fact-checker and journalist Qadaruddin Shishir said that the presentation of the mass uprising was a form of the Indian media鈥檚 long time practice.
He mentioned that a section of Indian media spread disinformation during important events and crises in Bangladesh for a long time.
Shishir stated that those media did not remove their published reports when the disinformation was proved.
鈥業t expresses that the reports were intentional,鈥� said Shishir.
DU mass communication and journalism associate professor Khorshed Alam said that there was an anti-Islam feature and Islamophobic framing in the presentation.
The academic added that Bangladesh was negatively framed by the Indian media.
Journalism-professor Sumon Rahman, political analyst Zahed Ur Rahman and writer Navine Murshid, among others, were present as discussants at the programme.