Inside Amit Malviya's fake news factory

Amit Malviya was often referred to as the head of a fake news factory.

At Jantar Mantar, especially the protests by the youth and Gen Z, not only shattered the image of Modi built over 12 years within just a month but also tarnished the image of the BJP. The significant change in the BJP's IT cell on Monday indicates that the BJP is now placing more emphasis on effective social media communication.

The party has "learned a lesson" from the recent Gen Z protests and the rise of the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP). The party has decided to remove Amit Malviya from the position of social media coordinator and appoint Deepak Mhaske in his place. Mhaske is currently the head of Chhattisgarh Medical Services Corporation Limited.

Additionally, Ashish Agarwal, Pradeep Bhandari, and Siddharth Yadav have been appointed as media co-coordinators, while Preeti Gandhi, Shivanand Dwivedi, Alok Bhatt, and Arun Yadav have been made social media co-coordinators. Anil Baluni will remain the party's media in-charge, while recently elected Rajya Sabha MP Tarun Chugh has been appointed as office in-charge.

Amit Malviya was the person often referred to as the head of the fake news factory. As the official head of the Hindutva party's online propaganda machine, Amit Malviya used social media in such a way that lies began to appear as truth, and these lies were propagated on WhatsApp to the extent that they became established truths. Amit Malviya turned social media into a weapon, making the impact of his false claims extremely widespread and dangerous.

A BJP insider said,

Many in the party are happy with this decision. Because of him (Malviya), many influencers who shared our content had distanced themselves from the BJP. Many influencers share our content not just for money, but because of ideology. He had become a power center within the party. It was necessary to remove him.

Let's delve into the actions of Amit Malviya, through which he wove a web of lies on social media.

On 15 January 2020, Amit Malviya, who ran the BJP's IT cell, shared a video of some unknown people on social media. It was claimed that women protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Delhi's Shaheen Bagh were being paid to protest.

A joint investigation by Alt News and Newslaundry found Malviya's allegation to be baseless. However, BJP leaders were not discouraged by this.

Two days later, he tweeted a picture of an elderly man eating food at Shaheen Bagh. He wrote, "Proof of biryani being distributed at Shaheen Bagh!" This was a claim that fueled the rumor that protesters were being given ₹500 and free food. His tweet was strange in itself. Was the BJP leader suggesting that eating food at a protest site was a crime or morally questionable?

Malviya's misleading tweets were not limited to Shaheen Bagh. Alt News had been monitoring his social media accounts for a long time and found that Malviya repeatedly used misinformation to malign individuals, communities, opposition parties, leaders, and social movements. Since he was the official head of the BJP's online propaganda machine, the misinformation spread by him had a wide impact. His claims were propagated by BJP members and supporters, leading to large-scale misinformation campaigns.

Amit Malviya spread misinformation about CAA protesters. Protesters in Lucknow raised slogans of 'Pakistan Zindabad'.

On 28 December, Malviya tweeted a video of protesters at Lucknow's Clock Tower opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act. He claimed that the protesters raised slogans of "Pakistan Zindabad".

Alt News found that this claim was false. The protesters were not raising pro-Pakistan slogans, but were saying "Kashif Sahab Zindabad", referring to Kashif Ahmed, the Lucknow chief of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM). The party's Uttar Pradesh unit president Haji Shaukat Ali told Alt News that Kashif Ahmed had led a protest in the state capital on 13 December.

A video of students from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act was circulated on social media with the claim that they had raised slogans against Hindus. On 16 December, Malviya was among those who shared this clip.

In reality, the students were raising slogans against Hindutva, Savarkar, BJP, Brahmanism, and casteism. They were saying,

"The grave of Hindutva will be dug on the chest of AMU, the grave of Savarkar will be dug on the chest of AMU, the grave of BJP will be dug on the chest of AMU, the grave of Brahmanism will be dug on the chest of AMU, the grave of casteism..."

On 26 January, Amit Malviya shared a video of journalist Arfa Khanum Sherwani's speech, claiming that Islamists wanted to keep CAA protests 'inclusive' only until non-Muslims started accepting their religious identity, beliefs, and supremacist slogans.

Khanum had given this speech at Aligarh Muslim University. The video was edited and presented out of context. Malviya claimed that the journalist was promoting the establishment of an Islamic society and telling protesters to pretend to support non-Muslims until such a society was formed.

But Khanum was saying the exact opposite. She was appealing to the protesters not to use religious slogans and to maintain the secular character of the movement.

Amit Malviya's most childish act was trying to portray Nehru as immoral. This not only embarrassed the BJP but also tarnished the entire ideology of the party. In November 2017, the BJP leader shared a collage of photos of India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru with several women. Most of these photos were with Nehru's sister or niece or international figures like Jacqueline Kennedy.

Malviya later deleted his tweet, but others continued to share the collage.

On 27 November 2018, Malviya tweeted a video of Manmohan Singh, in which the former Prime Minister could be heard saying, "The governments of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were very good." This clip made it seem as if Manmohan Singh was praising the BJP-ruled state governments.

But Malviya had shared a clipped portion of a speech given by the former Prime Minister a day earlier. Manmohan Singh's actual words were -

"My relations with the Madhya Pradesh government and the Chhattisgarh government were very good. We never discriminated against BJP-ruled states."

In November 2017, Malviya claimed that then-Congress President Rahul Gandhi had registered himself as a "non-Hindu" in the register of Gujarat's Somnath Temple.

However, handwriting analysis found that the entry in the register did not match Rahul Gandhi's publicly available handwritten notes.

Now, let's discuss the most talked-about potato-gold machine claim. In the same month, Malviya tweeted a video of Rahul Gandhi, in which he was seen saying - "I will install such a machine, potato will go in from this side, gold will come out from that side."

This was a video clipped from a long speech. Rahul Gandhi was actually mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a speech in Patan, Gujarat, on 12 November 2017.

In the full video, Rahul Gandhi says,

"A few months ago, there was a flood here, ₹500 crore will be given, (PM Modi) did not give a single rupee. He told potato farmers that he will install such a machine, potato will go in from this side, gold will come out from that side... These are not my words, these are Narendra Modi's words."

Not only this, Amit Malviya also circulated several pieces of misinformation on social media in support of Modi.

On 24 January 2019, Narendra Modi took a dip in the Ganga during the Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh.

Following this, Malviya tweeted that Modi was the "first head of state" to visit the Kumbh in so many years.

This claim was incorrect on two levels. First, the Prime Minister is not the head of state of India; the President is. On this basis, the first head of state to visit the Kumbh was India's first President, Rajendra Prasad. Modi was not even the first Prime Minister to visit the Kumbh.

Is Malviya still the co-incharge of West Bengal? Will removing Malviya shut down the BJP's factory of spreading lies? Will changing the team's captain improve the team?

At least, looking at the old tweets of Alok Bhatt, who has been made the convener of social media in the new team, it seems wrong to expect such a change. His old tweets are filled with anti-reservation sentiments, communal hatred, and abusive language.

Another co-convener of the new team, Preeti Gandhi's admiration for Godse has surfaced several times.

The party that calls its opponents 'intellectual Naxals' seems to prefer this kind of language from its own people.