Aeschylus, the father of tragedy, once lamented, “In war, truth is the first casualty.” Amidst the chaos of Middle Eastern fire, as missiles flew between Tehran and Tel Aviv, India launched a wave of calculated disinformation exploiting the crisis. Indian lies travelled faster than the Iranian drones but were debunked as swiftly as the Iron Dome faltered in Tel Aviv.
During the 2025 play, frantic news anchors, fueled by online trolls and commentators, did everything possible to suppress the truth. They trampled it, shredded it, chopped it into tiny bits, ignited it, and disposed of the ashes in the Ganga. These perpetual liars didn’t just murder the truth but also performed its “Antim Sanskar” (funeral rites) with vulgar pageantry. I wonder if truth were asked for its last wish, what it would be? Surely, it must be seeking accountability from its perpetrators.
The chronicle begins on 13 June 2025, when the genocidal state of Israel launched an offensive against Iran. This triggered a Twelve-Day War, which ended with a ceasefire on 24 June 2025 — a day after Iran’s symbolic attacks on US military bases in the Middle East. This war quenched its thirst for blood with around a thousand casualties. These twelve days set the stage for a second wave of jingoism and disinformation in India’s bewildering information ecosystem, after the first round of naked lies and international humiliation during the Indo-Pak Four-Day War.
Major Gaurav Arya — a renowned warmonger and pathological liar — blamed Iran for sponsoring terrorism in Kashmir during an interview at Times Now Navbharat dated 20 Jun 2025. He labelled Iran a terrorist state, claiming that its whole leadership must be eliminated swiftly to ensure global peace. Arya further asserted that Israel was not just fighting its own battle, but that of the entire world.
He predicted that Saudi Arabia would soon join the war, the same thing he prophesied about Afghanistan during the Four-Day Indo-Pak War. None of his absurd predictions came true. This fabulist again distorted the historical facts by claiming that all the nuclear sites attacked during the conflict were originally built by Israel in the post-1979 era. The whole program was a monkey show. Arya also reported that Pakistan’s airspace had been used by B-2 bombers during the Fordow strike. Earlier, he referred to the Iranian Foreign Minister as a “son of a pig,” which triggered the diplomatic row between Tehran and Delhi.
The torrent of misinformation surged. Dinesh Gautam, the host of the same program, deceitfully claimed that Pakistan had been caught spying for the US through a BACN system. This claim was entirely fabricated.
Sheikh Aamir, a young Congress spokesperson and social activist from Indian-Occupied Kashmir, along with Talha Amir Rashidi, an Indian national, powerfully and effectively debunked the Zionist propaganda and lies spread by India’s top mythomaniac, Arnab Goswami, during a debate on Republic World aired on 18 June 2025. It was a moment of utter embarrassment for Goswami.
All the heartless Indian clowns were even seen laughing at the bombing of Iranian media outlets, specifically mocking female journalist Sahar Emami. She was reporting live when an Israeli bomb struck the state news agency building. Regardless of one’s stance on the war, it is indubitably terrifying to experience an explosion erupt behind you in real time.
Arnab Goswami mocked Emami, ridiculing her for “running away in a cowardly manner” when her station was bombed. Perhaps she should have learnt courage from Goswami — the wimp who moaned, cried, and clung to his chair like a child denied candy when Mumbai Police arrived to arrest him. However, Emami returned to the broadcast shortly afterward and has since become a powerful symbol of resilience — hailed as the “lioness of Iranian media.”
The whole Godi Media — including Arnab Goswami (Republic TV), Anjana Om Kashyap (Aaj Tak), Navika Kumar (Times Now), Rahul Shivshankar (CNN-News18), Amish Devgan, Rubika Liyaquat (News18 India), Rajat Sharma (India TV), Gaurav Sawant (India Today), and Sushant Sinha (Times Now Navbharat) — were all in line and worked overtime to spread disinformation. Republic Bharat had flashy graphics, and there was a competition among channels over fighter jets, warships, death, destruction, and blood-soaked fonts. TV9 Bharatvarsh was far ahead in this visual jingoism. Air raid sirens dominated the warmongering media, even though the government had advised them to stop using such sounds.
Islamabad supported Tehran diplomatically against the aggressor, Israel, on all international forums while maintaining strategic balance. The country strongly condemned both Israeli and US attacks on Iran and adopted a clear stance: Iran has a right to self-defense. Meanwhile, Indian media and propaganda networks launched perfidious, hypocritical campaigns. After the success of Operation Bunyan al-Marsous, India faced global humiliation. The President of the United States invited COAS Asim Munir to lunch at the White House.
Anxious about Islamabad’s growing ties with Washington, Indian propaganda first accused Pakistan of providing military support to Iran. When that failed, these pathological disinformation machines spread the manipulative lie that Islamabad would nuke Israel. Pakistan’s defense minister swiftly issued an official statement debunking all such false claims.
When all else failed, they turned 360 degrees and began propagating that Pakistan was offering military bases and airspace to the US against Iran. What hypocrisy! All their lies lived no life — and truth prevailed.
Reports from Al Jazeera, The New Arab, and the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) in 2023 have highlighted that Hindu nationalist and right-wing accounts, often linked to the BJP’s IT Cell, have been major sources of Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian misinformation on social media platforms, particularly X (formerly Twitter), during the Israel-Gaza conflict. These accounts reportedly aimed to stoke anti-Muslim sentiment and reinforce India’s pro-Israel diplomatic stance under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration. Fact-checkers such as Alt News estimate that approximately two-thirds of such disinformation is produced by Hindu nationalists, who employ emotionally charged narratives to drive engagement or profit from X Premium subscriptions.
According to Grok and multiple Community Notes on X, a significant number of fake or anonymous pro-Zionist accounts — including handles like @VividProwess, @InevitableWest, @CherylWroteIt, @NiohBerg, @TheMossadIL, @WarMonitors, @IsraelWarRoom, @MOSSADil, @JoeTruzman, @Israelkicksass, @EliAfriatISR, @AfgZoroastrian, @JesvinGeo, among others — are allegedly operated by individuals based in India while posing as Western or Israeli users. These accounts often disseminate disinformation, amplify Islamophobic tropes, and present themselves as authentic voices from the Global North or Israel to enhance credibility and reach.
In the end, the cameras will cut, the studios will go murky, and the Hawks who screamed for war from behind glass desks will elapse, but the truth they tried to bury never left; it waits in the rubble for someone to dig it out. “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” That’s the real case here.
If you want to submit your articles and/or research papers, please visit the Submissions page.
To stay updated with the latest jobs, CSS news, internships, scholarships, and current affairs articles, join our Community Forum!
The views and opinions expressed in this article/paper are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Paradigm Shift.
Mohamin Zeeshan is a scholar of International Relations at the National Defense University, Islamabad.
