There are moments in international diplomacy when a story stops being just a headline and becomes something more human—a quiet reminder of how easily dignity can be stolen by a camera lens. In that spirit, India’s recent response to a deeply troubling piece of misinformation stands out not because of its political sharpness, but because of its understated sadness. India on Tuesday expressed deep concern over reports that Chinese nationals had been filming impoverished neighbourhoods in Bangladesh and then presenting the footage as scenes from New Delhi. The Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, called such attempts to portray a distorted picture of a country “unfortunate.” During his biweekly media briefing, he spoke not in aggressive terms, but with the weariness of someone who knows that lies travel far faster than truth. The reports, originally published by Bangladesh’s Prothom Alo, alleged that around 150 Chinese vloggers had been documenting some of the poorest corners of Dhaka and broadcasting them as though they were the Indian capital. The intention, it seemed, was not simply to mislead, but to mock. To make ordinary people’s struggles look like proof of a nation’s failure. To turn poverty into a punchline. And in doing so, to feed a false narrative that serves no one except those who profit from division.
The details from the investigation are difficult to read without a knot in the stomach. According to Prothom Alo, Chinese nationals were filming in areas like Tekpara and Uttara, two very different but equally real parts of Dhaka, and presenting them as neighbourhoods of New Delhi. Digital platforms like WeChat and Douyin were used to broadcast these livestreams to audiences across the world. In one disturbing instance, a woman identified as ‘Mianmian’ stood in Uttara’s Sector 12 on November 1 and pointed her camera at tin-roofed houses. “This is New Delhi. Their homes are extremely dirty. There isn’t even a fan inside the tin-roofed houses,” she said, adding that the area was “underdeveloped, dirty and unhygienic” and that the law-and-order situation was poor. Her tone was not compassionate. It was contemptuous. In another clip, a man called ‘Wang Wei’ filmed tea vendors in Tekpara and made remarks that crossed the line from ignorance to cruelty. “Look, they are drinking tea. Do you know what kind of tea this is? This is cow urine tea. They drink cow urine tea,” he claimed. The falsehood was so absurd that it might have been laughable, were it not for the fact that it was broadcast as fact. These were not accidental misunderstandings. They were carefully staged performances designed to manipulate viewers and demean a people. The unfortunate truth is that in the crowded digital ecosystem, such content often finds fertile ground. People who have never visited Delhi or Dhaka might watch these videos and walk away believing something horrible and untrue. And the damage is not just to India’s reputation, but to the human beings whose homes and livelihoods were turned into backdrops for a lie.
Behind every frame of that footage lies a deeper human story that the vloggers ignored. The residents of Tekpara and Uttara were not actors. They were people going about their lives—cooking, working, resting, raising children. Many of them live in genuine hardship, but hardship does not strip a person of dignity. The videos treated their struggles as evidence of inferiority, as though a tin roof and a lack of ceiling fans were moral failings rather than circumstances shaped by history, economy, and opportunity. Worse, the report noted that filming crews entered residential spaces, kitchens, and private areas without permission. Imagine the intrusion: a stranger walking into your home, not to help, not to understand, but to mock you for an audience of strangers. The report also revealed that local facilitators were being paid between 700 and 800 Bangladeshi taka per day to guide the foreign nationals through the neighbourhoods. That is a modest sum, perhaps enough to buy a family meal, but for some people living on the margins, it was enough to become willing accomplices in a project of shameful distortion. It is easy to condemn the facilitators, but perhaps their actions speak to a deeper poverty—the kind that makes a few taka feel worth more than a principle. The real victims, though, were the residents who had no idea they were being turned into props. They did not consent to being labelled as residents of another country. They did not agree to have their tea described as “cow urine.” They did not ask for their homes to be used as evidence of a nation’s supposed failure. Their only crime was being visible in a place that someone else wanted to distort.
India’s response, in many ways, was exactly what it should have been: measured, principled, and rooted in a call for accountability. Jaiswal did not seek to escalate tensions or hurl accusations at a particular government. Instead, he highlighted the deeper danger of false narratives. “Such efforts to present a distorted picture of any country is unfortunate,” he said. “Insofar as efforts to buy foreign elements to portray Dhaka as Delhi are concerned, peddling of false narratives only undermines the credibility of those who are undertaking such actions and those who are filming them.” Those words matter because they shift the focus from the victims to the perpetrators. The people behind such disinformation are not clever. They are not winning some invisible battle. They are simply exposing their own lack of ethics and their willingness to exploit human misery for clicks, views, and ideological warfare. Jaiswal also urged the concerned authorities to take action against the reported activities. “I would urge that authorities concerned must take action against such a report,” he added. It is a reminder that misinformation is not just a personal matter. It is a public harm. When falsehoods cross borders and are broadcast to global audiences, they become a matter of international responsibility. Governments, police forces, and digital platforms all have a role to play in stopping the spread of such content. But the deeper work belongs to ordinary people. We must train ourselves to ask questions before sharing sensational videos. We must remember that poverty is not a costume worn for the camera, and that a place’s challenges do not define its worth. The momentary entertainment of a livestream is not worth the permanent wound it can inflict on a community’s reputation.
This incident also arrives at a sensitive time for regional relationships, particularly between India and Bangladesh. The two countries share more than just a border—they share history, culture, language, and family ties. They have worked together through difficult moments, building trust over decades. Yet in the age of disinformation, such bonds can be strained by a single viral video. The Chinese nationals involved in this case apparently wanted to create a false image of New Delhi by using Bangladeshi locations. But the impact of their actions ripples far beyond India. It also casts a shadow on Bangladesh, whose people and places were used without consent as props in another country’s public relations war. There is an ugly irony in this: while the vloggers tried to make Delhi look bad, they also made Dhaka look like a place that could be mistaken for Delhi. The affair should concern everyone who cares about the integrity of information in South Asia. It underscores the need for stronger media literacy, for cross-border cooperation in identifying and stopping disinformation networks, and for a collective refusal to accept stories that seem designed to divide. China has not officially responded to the reports, but the incident raises difficult questions about the role of foreign influencers and the narratives they choose to propagate. It is not enough for platforms to wait until a video goes viral before removing it. Prevention requires vigilance, and vigilance requires treating every community with the same respect we would demand for our own.
In the end, the story is not truly about Delhi or Dhaka. It is about how we see one another as human beings. The videos produced by those Chinese vloggers were not honest observations. They were caricatures drawn with malice. But they also reveal something uncomfortable about our world: we are often too quick to accept the worst image of places we have never visited. We let a livestream shape an entire impression. We let a stranger’s sneer become our own belief. The antidote to this is empathy, and empathy is built by remembering that every street, every home, every tin roof has a story that cannot be captured in a few seconds of footage. The people of Uttara and Tekpara deserve better than to be reduced to a backdrop for someone else’s agenda. The people of Delhi, too, deserve better than to be defined by a lie. And the people watching those videos deserve better than to be manipulated by forces that profit from hatred. As authorities in Bangladesh and India look into the matter, there is hope that the truth will prevail. But truth is not automatic. It requires effort—from journalists who investigate, from officials who speak up, and from all of us who consume information. Let us be slower to judge, quicker to question, and always willing to see the humanity in places we do not know. Because no country, no city, and no neighbourhood should ever be turned into a punchline for the amusement of strangers. And no poverty, no matter how deep, should ever be used as evidence of a people’s unworthiness. That is not just a diplomatic lesson. It is a human one.