Sirens, wrong visuals, and ‘Allahu Akbar’ dog-whistles: The Godi-fication of US-Israel-Iran war

Deafening studio sirens. Recycled war footage. From defending the indefensible to peddling outright fake news, there isn't a conflict usual suspects on mainstream TV media won't exploit. 

The escalating war between Israel, the United States, and Iran is now being re-edited and 'Godi-fied' for living rooms across the country.

Aaj Tak’s Anjana Om Kashyap shared a two-day-old video from Manama, Bahrain, where you can see an Iranian drone hitting a skyscraper, claiming that it’s from Dubai. Their sister channels, India Today and NDTV, also ran the same visuals, even though the viral video shows ‘Zaya Tower’ in Manama.  

Rahul Shivshankar’s amplification of the clip came with a predictable layer of subtext. By highlighting the cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’, Shivshankar engaged in the kind of dog-whistling that has become a staple of Indian newsrooms, while clearly ignoring the fact that Muslims invoke this phrase in moments of grief, fear, gratitude, and joy alike. By stripping the words of their context and framing them as a signifier of conflict, Shivshankar isn't just reporting on the Iran crisis; he’s reinforcing a domestic bias under the guise of geopolitical ‘analysis’.

Meanwhile, NDTV circulated a one-week-old video to showcase how the US Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was attacked by two Iranian drones. The conflict started only on February 28 – a fact their desk editors missed.    

Taking matters to an extreme, ABP News hosted a panel of astrologers versus scientists debating the conflict in West Asia. Forget any sober geopolitical analysts, the astrologers on the panel claimed that the conflict was happening because Iran’s ‘kundali’ (horoscope) was bad. They also predicted this round of escalation will go on till March 15, although April would be worse with China getting involved. 

If this wasn’t bad enough, our very own ANI had no issue platforming Goldie Ghamari, falsely claiming that the Iranian regime was responsible for a strike that killed 165 people – mostly schoolgirls – in an elementary school in Minab, a city in Iran’s Hormozgan province. Ghamari is a former Canadian lawmaker of Iranian descent and a pro-Reza Pahlavi, pro-Donald Trump Iranian diaspora voice. 

This claim, however, has been debunked by Shayan Sardarizadeh, the BBC's disinformation reporter. 

On News18 India, Aman Chopra repeatedly claimed the Saudis had contracted the US to kill Khamenei, citing a Washington Post report that had been dismissed hours before Chopra’s telecast by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Notably, the Post report mentioned both Saudi Arabia and Israel as behind the lobbying efforts. Still, Chopra focused on the former, in keeping with the outdated idea that it was merely the Sunnis vs the Shias, that Muslims populated warmongering nations. The American and Israeli unprovoked aggression, despite the Iranian position on nuclear negotiations, wasn’t even a footnote in the anchor’s agenda.

The show was largely framed around the question of why India, especially Modi, should intervene in another country’s internal matters. Without the context: the accusation that Modi had already aligned himself by skipping any statement on Khamenei’s killing and by an ill-timed visit to Israel that was seen by Israeli media as a clear alignment.

Narrative building against Iran

Beyond the outright lies, fake visuals, and disinformation, there is also an attempt to build a narrative against Iran – a country with which India shares historical ties.  

News18 India’s Amish Devgan recently took to X to school the Opposition on why Prime Minister Modi needn't bother with reaching out to Iran in this difficult time. His logic? Iran has never stood by India, citing the 1965 and 1971 wars as proof.

As he noted, “Those people should just recall when Iran stood with India.... Be it the Mumbai attack or the 1965 and 1971 wars.... Every time, Iran has stood against India.”

There’s just one tiny, chronological hiccup: The Islamic Republic that Devgan is critiquing didn’t exist until the 1979 Revolution.

As veteran defence reporter Man Aman Singh Chhina pointed out in The Indian Express: “It is worth noting that, while India has had reasonably good relations with Iran since the 1979 regime change, the country’s earlier ruler, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, was decidedly pro-Pakistan. Pahlavi, who ruled Iran from 1941 to 1979, was instrumental in helping Pakistan with military aid during the 1965 and 1971 wars with India. And much of this military help was given at the bidding of US administrations.”

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's position on Kashmir was complex. After taking over as Supreme Leader in 1989, he often invoked Kashmir in his speeches and sermons. 

When violence erupted in 1990, he said, “Kashmir is a contemporary example. Muslims there speak out their rights. Anyone who is informed of what Kashmir has gone through knows what the Muslims of Kashmir express is nothing but truth and justice. Those who silence them have an unjust cause.” 

At the same time, Iran has historically refused to align with Pakistan's position on Kashmir. Most famously in 1994, then-President Rafsanjani blocked a UN resolution condemning India’s human rights record in the region. By refusing to support the move, Iran effectively denied Pakistan the consensus it needed, causing the resolution to be withdrawn and saving New Delhi from international censure – a high-stakes diplomatic favour many still recall, even as our newsrooms choose to forget it.

As this explainer in The Indian Express also noted: "Iran was also instrumental in raising frequent objections to Pakistan’s anti-India resolutions in forums such as the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation (formerly the Organisation of the Islamic Conference), among others.” 

Khamenei was often critical of India over Kashmir and other domestic issues, yet during his tenure, bilateral ties reached unprecedented heights. 

What many – including our primetime anchors – fail to grasp is that Khamenei wasn't just Iran’s Supreme Leader; he was a preeminent religious figurehead for Shia Muslims globally. While he frequently spoke out against policies he viewed as harmful to Muslim interests, he simultaneously maintained a functional, even warm, relationship with New Delhi – a rarity in a regional neighbourhood that has grown increasingly hostile. None of this nuance, however, has stopped our TV anchors from flattening the facts to peddle a convenient anti-Iran narrative.

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