Has India been targeted due to growing economy?

Subsequent to both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) hailing India’s resilient economy despite a challenging external environment, many elements have willfully targeted the country in a negative way. India is poised to become the third largest economy in the world only behind the United States of America and China by 2028, two years earlier than initially predicted, showed the IMF World Economic Outlook database.

From December 1 last year, India assumed the presidency of the G20 for a year, and will chair over 200 meetings aimed at securing prosperity and growth in the global economy.  

The G20 Chair gives India the opportunity to play a vital role in the world economy as it could be used to pursue its thought leadership role and the broader goal of reducing polarisation, channelise resources in an inclusive manner, and firming up optics in favour of developmental priorities.

Not only India’s sustainable economic growth but also its sound foreign policy, India’s decision to continue to buy fuel from Russia has come under heavy criticism while Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Multinational conglomerate company, Adani Group, had also been subject to slander and criticism.

On January 17, the first episode of the two-part BBC television investigative documentary, India: The Modi Question, was broadcast in Britain accusing PM Modi of being involved in the 2002 Gujarat riots.

The Central Government of India has justifiably blocked the documentary permanently using emergency powers under the emergency provisions of the Information Technology Rules, 2021. 

It is noteworthy to mention that the documentary has been broadcast despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi being given a clean chit by India’s apex court as there is no evidence against him.

Even the Nanavati Commission report on the 2002 Gujarat violence tabled in the State Legislative Assembly in 2019 said, “There is no evidence to show that these attacks were either inspired or instigated or abetted by any Minister of the State.” 

Regarding the documentary, a former Indian foreign secretary said, “I do not recall any other friendly head of government getting such criticism on the BBC.” It, therefore, raises the obvious question: why did the BBC decide to air this explosive film on the Gujarat riots now? The British government is presently engaged in delicate negotiations with its Indian counterpart to arrive at an ambitious trade treaty.

Expressing strong objection to the BBC documentary, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, Arindam Bagchi, said that it was “a propaganda piece, designed to push a particular discredited narrative”.

Ambassador Anil Trigunayat, who is among 302 eminent citizens who wrote an open letter against the BBC documentary, said the BBC and the deep state are reflective of the western mindset that refuses to accept that a country once ruled by them can surpass them and one of Indian origin can rule them.

“When they have nothing to carp about, they resort to hypocrisy, forgetting their own crimes against humanity, conveniently forgetting their criminal colonial past, and digging out prejudicial, baseless and illegal theories to stoke communal discord in keeping with their time-tested tricks –divide and rule. India believes in the rule of law and gives respect and credence to the rulings of the Supreme Court. The frequency of such canards will surely increase as India moves up the ladder, hence a robust media strategy should be crafted to preemptively deal with such wilful and designed irreverence,” he said.

PM Modi wasn’t the only one attacked by the Western World. On January 24, the controversial short seller Nathan Andersen’s Hindenburg Research released a report targeting Adani Group which was laced with various framed and vague accusations ranging from conspiracy theories to stock manipulation, accounting fraud, and concerns over the group’s leverage and valuations.

This report resulted in the Adani Group stocks losing Rs 4 lakh crores of the market cap within two days. The Hindenburg report was timed just ahead of Adani’s biggest-ever public issue to sabotage Adani Group’s flagship company – Adani Enterprises Ltd.

Though the target of the report was the Adani Group, the Indian stock market with many top 500 companies closed in the red. The stock indices resorted to hard-hit bleeding for two successive days. Along with that, the Indian stock markets lost their eminent position in the top five equity markets in the world. In other words, the attack on Adani heavily impacted the overall equity markets and valuations of many other famed companies and banks.

The intent of this report was to create suspicion and cast aspersions on the credibility of Indian companies and in turn, on the Indian economy, and thereby stall the fundraising opportunities and options of Indian companies.

Meanwhile, some of the western countries and mainly western media have criticized India for buying Russian oil at a steep discount since global powers imposed sanctions on Moscow in a bid to cut down its ability to raise funds for its war against Ukraine.

In response to criticisms, Energy Minister Hardeep Singh Puri told CNBC that India will secure oil from anywhere as long as the terms are beneficial.

“We didn’t allow the geopolitical turbulence or the pandemic or anything else to come in the way of our ability to supply to our consumer,” Puri added.

India is the third largest oil consumer in the world, and according to, accounts for 30% of global consumption.