In 2019, theInternational Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) rejected OpIndia's application to be certified as afact checker.[54] IFCN-certified fact checkers identified 25 fake news stories and 14 misreported stories published by OpIndia from January 2018 to June 2020.[36] A study of 54,850 OpIndia articles published between 2014 and 2023 found that OpIndia consistently characterised Hindus in positive terms and Muslims in negative terms to further the website'sHindu nationalist ideals.[40] OpIndia published a series of reports in 2020 falsely claiming that a Hindu boy wassacrificed in aBihar mosque.[55]
The website is owned by Aadhyaasi Media and Content Services, a former subsidiary of the parent company of the right-wing magazineSwarajya.[14]: 2 [15] The current CEO of OpIndia is Rahul Roushan, and the current editors are Nupur J Sharma (English) and Chandan Kumar (Hindi).[5]
History
Ownership and leadership of OpIndia's parent company, Aadhyaasi Media and Content Services, as of June 2020[36]
OpIndia was founded in December 2014[15] by Rahul Raj and Kumar Kamal as a current affairs and news website. OpIndia is owned by Aadhyaasi Media and Content Services, aprivate limited company.[36] In October 2016, Aadhyaasi Media was acquired by Kovai Media Private Limited, aCoimbatore-based company that also owns theright-wing[14]: 2 [15] magazineSwarajya.[25][56] Kovai Media's most prominent investors were formerInfosys executives T. V. Mohandas Pai (three percent ownership) andN. R. Narayana Murthy (two percent ownership). Kovai Media retained ownership of Aadhyaasi Media until July 2018.[36]
Raj left OpIndia over a disagreement with the site's editorial stance.[25] OpIndia and Aadhyaasi Media separated from Kovai Media in November 2018.[36] Rahul Roushan was appointed the CEO of OpIndia,[57] and Nupur J. Sharma became the editor.[56] Roushan and Sharma each owned half of Aadhyaasi Media after the transition. In January 2019, Aadhyaasi Media was acquired by Kaut Concepts Management Pvt Ltd, which gained 98 percent ownership of Aadhyaasi Media and left Roushan and Sharma with one percent each. Kaut Concepts has a 26 percent stake in TFI Media Pvt Ltd, the operator ofTFIpost—aHindu nationalist website also known asThe Frustrated Indian, and is directed by Ashok Kumar Gupta, who is associated with theRashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and campaigns for theBharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Aadhyaasi Media's directors are Sharma, Gupta, and Roushan's wife, Shaili Raval.[36]
In the 2018–2019 financial year, Aadhyaasi Media reported₹1 million (US$12,000) in profit.[36] Between March and June 2019, OpIndia purchased₹90,000 (US$1,100) ofpolitical advertising onFacebook. The BJP petitioned Facebook to allow OpIndia to receiveadvertising revenue on the social network in November 2019.[52][58][59] In 2020, theWest Bengal Police filedfirst information reports (FIRs) against Sharma, Roushan and Ajeet Bharti (then editor of OpIndia Hindi) in response to content published on OpIndia. TheSupreme Court of Indiastayed the FIRs in June 2020 after hearing aplea from the defendants which argued that the matter was outside thejurisdiction of thegovernment of West Bengal.[60][61] In December 2021, the Supreme Court quashed the FIRs after the West Bengal state government informed the court that they had decided to withdraw the FIRs.[62]
In 2022, OpIndia was sent a legal notice by a woman at theTikri protest site fordoxxing her and falsely claiming that she was raped at the site.[63]
Content
OpIndia denounces what it describes as "liberal media".[15] In an analysis of the 284 articles published by OpIndia in 2018,University of Maryland researchers Prashanth Bhat and Kalyani Chadha identified five recurring patterns in OpIndia's content:[14][28]
Portraying mistakes asfake news: OpIndia has provided coverage of "misquoted statements, incorrect headlines, or errors" in variousmainstream media outlets, includingNDTV,The Times Group andBBC, and claimed them to be "fake news". After the outlets published corrections, OpIndia continued to allege that the errors were intentional. According to Bhat and Chadha, the rhetoric employed by OpIndia is similar to the strategies used by Europeanright-wing populist publications that aim to engender distrust in the mainstream media.[14]: 5–6
Shaming journalists: OpIndia has attacked the "professionalintegrity" of specific mainstream media journalists that the website believes to be opposed to the ruling BJP, including journalists fromThe Wire,The Indian Express,NDTV andThe Quint. OpIndia has accused these journalists ofsexual harassment,plagiarism,financial misconduct, "malicious editing" and other forms of unethical behaviour. Some stories in this category were obtained by monitoring the journalists'social media accounts for "inconsistencies or contradictions". Bhat and Chadha compared OpIndia's method of attacking journalists to practices used by American right-wing publications.[14]: 6–7
Alleging partisanship: OpIndia has alleged the existence of a "news media conspiracy" in which mainstream media outlets are biased against the ruling BJP and India itself, and favourable toward the oppositionIndian National Congress (INC), which the website considered part of the "establishment". OpIndia claimed that the media produced too little coverage of the INC's use ofCambridge Analytica, while providing too much coverage of the BJP's handling of theRafale deal controversy. English-language outlets are the primary targets of OpIndia's criticism.[14]: 7–8
Amplifying criticism: OpIndia has regularly featured stories in which celebrities and public officials criticised mainstream media outlets, and reports in which the outlets apologised to critics. In these stories, OpIndia accused journalists of various faults, including "insensitivity and irresponsibility", misinformation, publishing sensitive information and compromising "national security". In one story, OpIndia covered theMinistry of Information and Broadcasting's criticism of journalistNidhi Razdan, then played down the Minister's correction after the situation was revealed to be a "misunderstanding".[14]: 8–9
Alleging bias against India and Hindus: OpIndia has accused Indian publications of having aliberalmedia bias and of publishing stories that are "anti-India", particularly regardingIndia–Pakistan relations. The website published allegations that mainstream media outlets were "anti-Hindu", including in rebukes ofTimes Now andCNN-News18 for coveringweight loss tips andfireworks bans aroundDiwali. Bhat and Chadha wrote that OpIndia's portrayal of the mainstream media as "pro-minority and anti-majority" is in line with the narratives communicated through Norwegian and German right-wing websites, and that the Diwali accusations resemble the "War on Christmas" allegations published by American right-wing outlets.[14]: 9–11
Raj, in 2014, intended for OpIndia to combatmedia manipulation and distinguish "what is being reported" from "what the facts are".[36] In 2018, Sharma stated that OpIndia is openly right-leaning and does not claim to be ideologically neutral.[23] Sharma described OpIndia's dislike ofleft-liberal ideas as one of the website's "ontological positions on the basis of which we operate" in 2019.[20] As of June 2020, OpIndia declares on its website that it aims to produce content "that is free from the burden of liberal bias andpolitical correctness".[36] The site accepts article contributions from its readers.[15]
Fact checkers certified by thePoynter Institute's International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), includingAlt News and Boom, have identified multiple instances in which OpIndia has published fake news.[38] According to aNewslaundry data compilation, OpIndia published 25 fake news stories and 14 misreported stories between January 2018 and June 2020 that were fact-checked by other organisations. False reports on OpIndia frequently criticise Muslims.[36]Newslaundry found 28 articles on OpIndia released from 15 to 29 November 2019 with headlines that explicitly named Muslims as perpetrators of various crimes. A writer who left OpIndia due to this trend toldNewslaundry, "If the accused in an incident belongs to the Muslim community, then you have to mention his name in the heading. The news is to be published in such a way that if the reader is a Hindu, then he starts developing hatred for Muslims."[35] In April 2020, Bharti blamed the severity of theCOVID-19 pandemic in India on Muslim "martyrdom" in an OpIndia video that was disseminated amongHindutva-orientedWhatsApp groups.[16] According to Alt News, OpIndia propagated 18 instances of misinformation in 2022.[64]
In June 2020,Newslaundry compared OpIndia to theAmerican far-right websiteBreitbart News, stating, "It's fair to say evenBreitbart wouldn't publish the sort of stuff that you'd routinely see onOpIndia."[36] An August 2021Association of Computing Machinery conference paper that examined website articles andTwitter posts related to the COVID-19 pandemic in India showed that "~ 66% of the 50 most frequently occurring articles from OpIndia portrayed Islamophobic behaviour", that OpIndia's COVID-19 coverage focused on Muslims and theTablighi Jamaat, and that OpIndia prominently published tweets that thePerspective evaluator identified as "rude, disrespectful, or unreasonable content". The paper concluded that "The widespread presence of media sources like OpIndia in our dataset, that frequently publish anti-Muslim content, shows that people used external sources to further Islamophobic views."[39]
Discourse & Society released an analysis of 54,850 OpIndia articles published from December 2014 to May 2023, determining that OpIndia's content conformed to a Hindu nationalist discourse that designated Hindus as thein-group and Muslims as the out-group. For Hindus, OpIndia usedfirst-person pronouns (such as "we") and positive descriptions that depicted the in-group as "innately good, non-offending, hapless" people who are "surviving and enduring atrocious crimes and being on the verge of perishing". For Muslims, OpIndia used third-person pronouns (such as "they") and negative descriptions that characterised the out-group as "self-victimising, conspirators, radical elements, merciless, brutal, blood lusty, brainwashing, and demanding privileges". OpIndia promoted thelove jihad conspiracy theory and terms including "mob", "Taliban" and "Al Qaeda" to present an exaggerated representation of Muslims as violent offenders, while using the term "community" for Hindus and minimising instances of violence conducted by Hindu nationalists.[40]
After theWikipedia community declared OpIndia an unreliable source in March 2020, OpIndia began publishing news content on a regular basis portraying Wikipedia in a negative light; it has accused theEnglish Wikipedia of having a left-wing andsocialist bias,[65][28] and haspublished the real names and employers of editors it accuses of being "Islamists" or "leftists".[11]The Verge noted in 2025 that OpIndia attacks Wikipedia "in ways that parallel attacks from theUS right, down to citations ofManhattan Institute research and quotes from the disgruntled cofounder,Sanger."[11]
Between 9–14 May 2020, OpIndia published a series of seven articles (one in English and six in Hindi)[37] falsely claiming that Rohit Jaiswal, a Hindu boy, wassacrificed in amosque in Bela Dih – a village inKateya,Gopalganj,Bihar – after which hisbody was disposed of in a river on 28 March.[41] In the articles, OpIndia alleged that the suspected perpetrators were "all Muslims".[41] One of the articles asserted, "A new mosque had been built in the village and it is being alleged that there was a belief that if a Hindu was 'sacrificed', the mosque would become powerful and its influence would increase."[41][42] The stories were accompanied with videos of Jaiswal's sister and father, in which neither of them mentioned a sacrifice or mosque.[42]
Jaiswal'spostmortem report indicated that his cause of death was "asphyxia due todrowning".[42][43] Local residents in the village, including Jaiswal's mother, declined to corroborate the human sacrifice claims,[41][42] and a local journalist said that the village did not have a new mosque.[41] Thefirst information report (FIR) filed by the father on 29 March listed six suspects (five Muslim boys and one Hindu boy)[37] and did not reference a sacrifice or mosque.[42][43] OpIndia later released an audio recording of its interview with Jaiswal's father, in which he claimed that Jaiswal was murdered in a mosque. In a follow-up interview withNewslaundry, the father retracted the claim and said that he made the accusations in "sheer frustration" of the attention around Jaiswal's death. AfterNewslaundry interviewed Bharti—then editor of OpIndia Hindi, OpIndia deleted the word "all" from the phrase "all Muslims" in its description of the suspected perpetrators.[43]
In March 2019, the IFCN rejected OpIndia's application to be certified as a fact checker.[20] While noting partial compliance on a number of categories, the IFCN rejected the application on grounds of political partisanship and lack of transparency and raised concerns over questionablefact-checking methodologies.[54] The rejection disqualified OpIndia from fact-checking contracts with web properties owned byFacebook andGoogle. In response, Sharma criticised the IFCN assessment and urged for acceptance of outlets with "declared ideological leanings".[20]
After co-founder Raj departed OpIndia, he described the website as a "blind mouthpiece" of the BJP onTwitter in August 2019.[36] Raj criticised Sharma, alleging that she and others "started astrolls" and "abuse andplay victim card when questioned".[25] OpIndia wasblacklisted from Wikipedia in March 2020 (alongsideSwarajya andTFIpost) after Sharma, in an OpIndia piece,published personally identifying information about a Wikipedia editor who helped write the encyclopedia's article on the2020 Delhi riots, which resulted in the editor leaving Wikipedia. OpIndia was characterized as "an Indian version ofThe Gateway Pundit that pretends to beThe Onion when others catch them publishing false and misleading information."[28]
Stop Funding Hate, a Britishsocial media campaign, urged organisations to withdraw their advertising from OpIndia in May 2020 after the website published an article asserting that businesses should be able to declare that they do not hire Muslims. The head of the campaign, Richard Wilson, said that "OpIndia is becoming internationally notorious for its hateful and discriminatory coverage" and that the campaign has "rarely seen such overt advocacy of discrimination on religious grounds". Over 20 organisations,[36] including advertising networkRubicon Project, video streaming serviceMubi, personal care brandHarry's and theSaïd Business School, ceased advertising on OpIndia as a result of the campaign. Sharma responded that she would "stand by our article and our content 100%" and that OpIndia would "never alter its core belief system or content".[50][68] Roushan stated that advertisements constitute a minority of OpIndia's revenue and claimed that OpIndia received a "700% jump" in donations during the campaign.[36]
^"અમારા વિષે(About Us)".ઑપઇન્ડિયા [OpIndia] (in Gujarati).Archived from the original on 1 June 2023. Retrieved10 June 2023.અમારા આ જ વાચકવર્ગની માંગણીને માન આપીને 2019માં ઑપઇન્ડિયા હિન્દી બાદ હવે 2022માં અમે ઑપઇન્ડિયા ગુજરાતી લાવી રહ્યા છીએ. [Respecting the demand of our same readership, after OpIndia Hindi in 2019, now in 2022 we are bringing OpIndia Gujarati.]
^ab"हमारे बारे में" [About Us].ऑपइंडिया [OpIndia] (in Hindi).Archived from the original on 18 April 2021. Retrieved14 April 2021.ऑपइंडिया (हिन्दी) के वर्तमान संपादक चंदन कुमार हैं [The current editor of OpIndia (Hindi) is Chandan Kumar]
^Manuvie, R.; Maurya, S. (July 2020)."An Atmosphere of Hate Case Study: OpIndia"(PDF).The London Story. p. 1.Archived(PDF) from the original on 13 September 2024. Retrieved25 September 2024.OpIndia as a far-right media house has in recent times not only promoted a highly Islamophobic narrative in India...
^abcDzieza, Josh (4 September 2025)."Wikipedia is under attack — and how it can survive".The Verge. Retrieved5 September 2025.The far-right online publication OpIndia regularly accuses Wikipedia of "anti-Hindu and anti-India bias," in ways that parallel attacks from the US right, down to citations ofManhattan Institute research and quotes from the disgruntled cofounder,Sanger.
^Chadha, Kalyani; Bhat, Prashanth (14 September 2022). "Alternative News Media and Critique of Mainstream Journalism in India: The Case of OpIndia".Digital Journalism.10 (8). Informa UK Limited:1283–1301.doi:10.1080/21670811.2022.2118143.ISSN2167-0811.S2CID252511758.
^abChandra, Mohit; Reddy, Manvith; Sehgal, Shradha; Gupta, Saurabh; Buduru, Arun Balaji; Kumaraguru, Ponnurangam (25 August 2021).""A Virus Has No Religion": Analyzing Islamophobia on Twitter During the COVID-19 Outbreak".HT '21: Proceedings of the 32nd ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media.Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 67–77.arXiv:2107.05104.doi:10.1145/3465336.3475111.ISBN978-1-4503-8551-0. Retrieved1 January 2025.Surprisingly, we observed a large number of URLs from a few websites that have been known to disseminate anti-Muslim news (OpIndia, Jihadwatch, and Swarajyamag). The frequency for URLs from OpIndia is maximum and double that of Aljazeera, which shows the scale of probable Islamophobic content shared through the URLs on Twitter.
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