Thread by @samjawed65

Remember British Herald? In 2019, an obscure website ran a poll and declared PM Modi as the most powerful person in the world. Thread👇 1/n

Desperate for international endorsement for PM Modi, BJP leaders and supporters immediately lined up to congratulate each other for this ‘achievement’ 2/n

DD News, our public broadcaster made a tribute video to announce that PM Modi had become the world’s most ‘powerful’ person leaving Trump, Putin and Jinping behind 3/n

https://twitter.com/ddnewslive/status/1142852335950974977

Referring to British Herald as a ‘leading British magazine’, Indian media declared it a ‘moment of pride’ for the nation. The usual suspects fawned over PM Modi’s latest achievement without bothering to check the details of the organisation behind the poll. 4/n

AltNews dug out more details about the website and found that it was owned by Herald Media Network Limited, a company registered in the UK. by an Indian. It was not a ‘leading’ British magazine as portrayed by Indian media. 5/n
altnews.in/media-celebrat…

The website had a low Alexa ranking, no wiki page of its own at that time, very few Twitter followers... Basically unheard of before it decided to cash in on the stupidity of the Indian right-wing and media outlets. 6/n

Sometime after the outrage, the results of the poll disappeared from the website of British Herald and so did its Twitter handle @HeraldBritish 7/n britishherald.com/narendra-modi-…

Later, British Herald came back with a new Twitter handle @BritishHeraldUK which was basically a renamed/reclaimed one and somewhere in the transition, it acquired a large number of followers as well. 8/n

In months to come, the website featured several other world leaders but the poll was not repeated again. In an attempt to rebuild the brand, the owner, Ansif Ashraf was profiled in several publications including Forbes ‘Brand Connect’ 9/n forbesindia.com/article/brand-…

Ansif Ashraf sadly passed away due to Covid in Jan 2021 at the age of 37. British Herald continues to operate as a news platform and has a ‘print on demand’ eMagazine like the one that featured PM Modi. 10/n

There are 2 reasons for telling the British Herald story - 1) The image of 2019 eMagazine with Modi on the cover is still doing rounds in right-wing circles with silly messages. 11/n

And 2) to respectfully ask the media cheerleaders who covered the poll by an obscure outlet so enthusiastically, what happens to polls that show the PM in an adverse light? Are they outside their brief? 12/12