Rohan Venkataramakrishnan

Lots of things float around the corners of political internet in India that falls under the category of preaching-to-the-choir propaganda. This is material that is so obviously blinkered that it’s only value is the equivalent of yelling in an echo chamber: You’re just saying the same thing over and over again, never mind the facts. Once in a while, this sort of thing emerges out of obscurity and goes mainstream.

On Saturday, Harsh Goenka – the chairman of a large industrial conglomerate in India – did the honours for a map that has been popping up on Twitter, Facebook and most pointedly on WhatsApp groups across the country.

Excellent job by BJP govt to improve relations with the world community. Modis foreign jaunts have certainly helped. pic.twitter.com/4T8kk1aWHb
— Harsh Goenka (@hvgoenka) January 30, 2016

The map claims to show how amazingly successful Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foreign policy has been. With no pretence towards subtlety (after all, it uses saffron to show countries that have ‘good relations’ with India and green for the ones that don’t), the map attempts to portray a world that was overwhelmingly opposed to India for the first 67 years of the country’s existence, but now suddenly is rather fond of it.

The map is ridiculous. There are no two ways around it. One would normally ignore this sort of fringe propaganda, but the fact that it went from getting thousands of shares on Facebook to turning up on the twitter account of an important Indian businessman is significant. One of the Facebook versions is even more comical, because it comes with a great photo of Modi alongside.

Preposterous as it may be, it’s making the rounds, not just of the party faithful but influential businessman as well, so it is worth breaking down.

The 1947-2014 map, including of course the Atal Bihari Vajpayee years, suggests that the vast majority of the planet had bad relations with India for 67 years. This includes not just Pakistan and what seems like most of China, but also the entire continents of North America, South America, Australia and most of Africa too.

The exceptions here are intriguing. Only Western Europe comes in the “good relations” category, including what seems like France, the United Kingdom and the Iberian peninsula. Meanwhile, Russia appears to be a confused country, with half of it leaning one way.

The post-2014 one is even better. Suddenly the entire world appears to have been saffronised, a way of explaining why Modi has been spending so much time abroad. But there are intriguing little tid-bits. Western Greenland/Eastern Canada apparently has not jumped on board the Modi train. Meanwhile, only a south-western portion of the Arabian peninsula, covering some of Saudi Arabia and Yemen, seems to have turned over to Modi’s side.

The map is not defined well enough to tell whether it thinks Nepal currently has good relations with India. And, probably most poignantly, both maps have the North East of India in the “not good relations with India” column.

The fact that this patently preposterous map is actually getting shared probably doesn’t deserve any more comment, but of course, Twitter was happy to offer it.

Labels don’t matter to me, madam. Truth is PM and Sushmaji has done a wonderful job in terms of foreign policy. https://t.co/VXPJ8omfOF
— Harsh Goenka (@hvgoenka) January 30, 2016

Hahahahaha why does India have “bad relations” with the islands between Greenland and Canada? https://t.co/oFEpPwy4R8
— Malika Rodrigues (@ruderigues) January 31, 2016

Hahahaha. So pre-2014 NAM countries didn’t have good relations with India? IBSA partners didn’t? Lols. https://t.co/cAqUffpoBS
— Pranesh Prakash (@pranesh) January 31, 2016

Happy that India has maintained good relations with India despite government change… pic.twitter.com/AvyQOwLtQ7
— Kabir Taneja (@KabirTaneja) January 31, 2016

@KabirTaneja @RohanV @narendramodi enlightening. Never knew Greenland had a problem with us.
— Devirupa Mitra (@DevirupaM) January 31, 2016

@KabirTaneja @RohanV i give up. this is too easy. i am sure there is some deeper meaning behind the map which i am not able to fathom.
— Devirupa Mitra (@DevirupaM) January 31, 2016

Disclaimer:The views expressed above are the author’s own