India has criticised Chinese bloggers for filming a suburb in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, and portraying it as an impoverished and unhygienic part of New Delhi, describing the alleged misrepresentation as ‘unfortunate’.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said on Tuesday that spreading false narratives undermined the credibility of those involved and the parties behind the exercise.
‘We have seen media reports in this regard. Such efforts to present a distorted picture of any country are unfortunate,’ he said during a regular press briefing.
‘In so far as efforts by foreign elements to portray parts of Dhaka as Delhi are concerned, peddling of false narratives only undermines the credibility of the actors involved and those behind them in such an exercise. We urge authorities concerned to take appropriate action against them,’ he added.
Chinese bloggers claim Dhaka neighbourhood is Delhi
According to an earlier report by ThePrint, scores of Chinese nationals have been livestreaming from crowded homes and roadside tea stalls in Uttara, a suburb in northern Dhaka, for several months.
However, the unusual feature of their broadcasts is that they tell viewers they are filming in New Delhi rather than Bangladesh’s capital.
Some of the videos have attracted attention on Chinese social media, depicting the neighbourhood as an impoverished and unhygienic part of India.
Local residents said they were bewildered by the steady stream of foreign livestreamers filming their daily lives. Some reportedly entered private homes and even bathrooms without permission.
Bangladeshi media reports have cited residents’ estimates that between 5,000 and 6,000 Chinese nationals were involved in the livestreaming activities. However, no official figures are available.
In one video filmed on Nov 1, a Chinese woman who identified herself as Mianmian, from China’s Sichuan province, livestreamed beside a canal in Uttara, showing viewers the neighbouring Tekpara area.
‘This is New Delhi. Their homes are extremely dirty. There is not even a fan inside the tin-roofed houses. This place is quite underdeveloped, dirty and unhygienic, and the law-and-order situation is poor,’ she said.
She also described sanitation practices among people in India, despite the footage being recorded in Dhaka.
Livestreams reportedly linked to product promotions
Residents said some Chinese nationals brought Indian consumer products, including shampoo, soap and Kesh King hair oil, to local pharmacies and used the shops as backdrops for promotional livestreams.
Shopkeepers were reportedly paid around 500 taka to allow the filming.
In a report, Bangladeshi broadcaster Bangla Vision attempted to question several Chinese nationals, some of whom walked away when approached by journalists, saying they could not speak English. Others disclosed their names and nationality before leaving.
Another broadcaster, ATN Bangla News, filmed Chinese nationals chasing rickshaws through the neighbourhood. Its narrator remarked in Bangla that visiting Tekpara could make someone feel as though they were in Beijing.
During a visit to the area on Oct 27, a Prothom Alo reporter met Ritu Akhter, a Bangladeshi woman who said she had been working as a guide for the Chinese nationals for several months.
She added that several other Bangladeshi women were employed in similar roles.
When asked where the videos were being broadcast, Akhter called over a Chinese national named Fangyou. She translated the reporter’s questions into Chinese and facilitated the conversation using Google Translate on his phone.
Fangyou said the group livestreamed on WeChat, China’s popular social media platform, as part of product-promotion activities.
However, he did not explain why the group had selected the particular neighbourhood or why the broadcasts continued for such long hours.
