Study: Dainik Jagran’s Coverage of NRC-CAA Protests, Delhi Violence Biased

The Study Indicates ‘Inversion of Truth’ by the Newspaper

January 21, 2025

Photo by Banswalhemant, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Hindi-language daily Dainik Jagran’s coverage of the 2020-2021 protests against the National Register of Citizens and the Citizenship Amendment Act (NRC-CAA), as well as the communal violence in Delhi, was “biased,” according to a study featured in the recently published book, “Inclusiveness in Indian Media Coverage.” The reportage predominantly supported the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) stance, depicting protestors negatively and associating them with violence while allocating minimal space for their perspectives, it suggests.

The study, conducted by Shireen Azam, a journalist and Ph.D. researcher at University of Oxford, is part of the book, which is edited by journalist Vinod K. Jose, former executive editor of The Caravan magazine from 2009 to 2023.

Dainik Jagran was likely chosen as the subject of this study because it is one of India’s largest and most popular Hindi-language newspapers, widely read across the country and potentially representative of practices in the country’s Hindi media.

The study examined the newspaper’s coverage of the protests before the communal violence in Delhi in February 2020, during the violence and in the days that followed.

As we may already know, NRC is an official record intended to identify legal residents of India. The NRC has been conducted only in the northeastern state of Assam, and the protests were in response to the proposal to implement it nationwide. There were widespread concerns that it could disenfranchise millions, particularly minorities, if they fail to meet strict documentary requirements.

The CAA, passed in 2019, provides a pathway to Indian citizenship for non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, and it faced protests because critics argue that it discriminates on the basis of religion and undermines India’s secular constitution.

During the Delhi communal violence, at least 53 people died.

The study examined 30 days of Dainik Jagran’s coverage, starting on Feb. 24, 2020, as the first day it reported on the violence. It then compared coverage of the 15 days before (Feb. 9–23) and the 15 days after (Feb. 24 – March 9). 

The researcher identified every relevant news report, opinion piece and editorial addressing the NRC-CAA protests and the Delhi violence. He then used quantitative and qualitative methods to assess perspectives presented, coverage of victims and possible perpetrators, negative and positive references and sensationalism.

The results indicated a strong bias in Dainik Jagran’s reporting. A recurring pattern was linking the violence to the anti-CAA-NRC protests, even though the paper itself did not supply evidence of such a connection. The protests were generally portrayed in negative terms and as violent, well before the events in Delhi began.

Below is an analysis of the results, focusing on articles from before Feb. 24, 2020; a detailed and full analysis is available in the book.

Between Feb, 9 and 23, Dainik Jagran featured CAA-NRC and protest stories prominently. They appeared on the front page on 11 of the 15 days, totaling 73 articles. Of these, 25 praised, supported or defended the Union government or the BJP’s decisions on CAA-NRC (six were front-page pieces). Although the subject was constantly mentioned, only nine articles included protestors’ views. Even among these nine, most contained negative references, and two offered rebuttals by CAA-NRC supporters. No article representing protestors’ points of view made it to the front page.

Notably, CAA-NRC supporters received coverage nearly equal to that of protestors, even though far larger numbers were protesting against the Act.

Whenever Dainik Jagran interviewed people in favour of CAA-NRC, it published their perspectives in a way suggesting two equally sized opposing groups. At the same time, anti-CAA-NRC protestors were treated with greater scepticism.

BJP perspectives appeared in 25 articles. Only seven included the opposition’s position, and five of those seven also carried a BJP rebuttal. Opposition leaders were more likely to be widely reported if they criticised their own parties or agreed with the BJP. They reached the front page only when supporting CAA-NRC.

Among the 73 articles, three mentioned terms such as democracy, rights, non-violence or the Constitution in connection with the protests. Meanwhile, 50 articles framed the protests negatively—calling them misled, disruptive, dangerous, violent, anti-national or linked to terrorism. Four articles were neutral. All three pieces that offered any positive context also contained negative commentary on the protests.

Even before Feb. 24, Dainik Jagran characterised the protests as violent, without citing specific examples of protestors causing harm, the study noted.

The study further noted that between December 2019 and February 2020, the protests remained broadly peaceful, though some incidents of arson occurred. During this same period, 20 Muslims were shot dead in Uttar Pradesh—some of whom were not protesting at all—and two in Mangaluru. On Dec. 14, 2019, in Aligarh, police used tear gas on campus grounds, charged students with lathis, severely injured some individuals (including one who lost a hand), and faced allegations of custodial torture. In January 2020, two men arrived at the Shaheen Bagh site with firearms.

Despite these events, which placed protestors on the receiving end of violence, Dainik Jagran’s reporting portrayed the protests as the main cause of unrest, said the study.

On Feb. 24, its headline stated that the CAA protest had turned violent “again,” implying it was prone to aggression.

For months, the paper focused on minor cases of property damage or traffic obstruction and gave limited emphasis to injuries or deaths of protestors. Even when a video showed the police beating students in Jamia Milia’s library on Feb. 16, 2020, the paper continued to question protestors.

When the violence began in Delhi on Feb. 23, 2020, Dainik Jagran published comments directly blaming Muslims.

On Feb. 22, it reported a statement by Union Minister Giriraj Singh claiming that Muslims who had remained in India during Partition were responsible for present-day problems. The paper did not describe this as dangerous or provide an opposing view, according to the study. Its lead editorial on Feb. 23 stated that the Shaheen Bagh protests were “testing the patience of the nation.”

Dainik Jagran used four techniques to “invert the truth” about the Delhi violence, effectively shaping public perception, the study concluded.