Right-Wing Indian Media Personality Calls on Modi Government to Wage ‘Information Warfare’ Against Canada to Help Pierre Poilievre

A right-wing pro-Modi media personality in India has once again taken YouTube, this time urging the Government of India to send money to Canada ahead of the next federal election to help bring the Conservative Party of Canada into power.

As PressProgress previously reported, Gaurav Arya, a retired Major with the Indian Army turned right-wing media personality, posted a video a few months ago advocating that India provide financial and political support to ‘think tanks and right-wing parties in Canada.’

In a new video, published September 5, Arya calls on India to create a “war chest” of “one hundred million dollars” to help Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives by showing Canadians how Justin Trudeau “lit Canada on fire.”

The video has already amassed nearly one million views to date, with many responses written by Hindi-language accounts that appear to be based in India.

Arya is a popular right-wing pundit aligned with Prime Minister Narenda Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who hosts a number of web-based programs in both Hindi and English as part of “Chanakya Forum,” a digital magazine on “foreign affairs, geopolitics and national security” which Arya runs as its Editor-in-Chief.

The Chanakya Forum is connected to influential figures in Indian military and diplomatic circles. Arya’s website counts dozens of retired Indian military officers and nearly a dozen former Indian ambassadors as contributors.

“When the next elections happen, Pierre Poilievre’s party, the Conservative Party, will come into power,” Arya tells his YouTube followers.

“India should prepare a war chest of $100 million US dollars,” Arya declares. “We are far richer than Canada, we have way more money than Canada.”

“We should prepare a war chest of at least $100 million dollars, have our top AI people, our top information warfare people, and our top digital media people.”

Arya suggests the “war chest” should be used to place ads in newspapers and “fund Canadian think tanks.” He also adds that because he believes China interfered in India’s 2024 election, that India should therefore interfere in Canadian elections.

“What I want to know is why isn’t India sending money to Canada? If $100 million isn’t enough then give $500 million,” Arya says. “What’s that much money, we give that to poor nations.”

“You should give money to the Conservative Party. Pierre Poilievre should have so much money his hands will get tired of spending it. He’ll say, ‘you guys gave me so much money what do I do with it? I’ll go crazy’.”

“This is how much money he should have.”

Arya’s YouTube channel has upwards of 2.65 million followers and has an additional 1.6 Million on “X,” the social media platform formerly known as Twitter – Arya’s bio simply states “honoured to be followed by Shri Narendra Modi.”

Arya also has ties with Canadian figures, previously interviewing retired CBC journalist Terry Milewski who published a controversial report about Sikhs That was published by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a right-wing Canadian think tank.

YouTube

Many of the comments on Arya’s video, which amassed over 3000 comments in just five days, agree with Arya’s assertion that India needs to interfere in Canada’s election.

“India must support Pierre, Conservatives to win at any cost,” reads one comment.

“Right Sir every Indian should donate to conservative party for the next election to clean sweep jagmeet and Jastin Trudeau,” states another.

Despite India being named a “clear second to (China) in terms of the level of (foreign interference) threat” by senior CSIS officials during the foreign interference inquiry national attention on India’s impact on Canadian elections has remained sparse. The foreign interference inquiry also found that “Canadian authorities have been monitoring bots and fake accounts linked to India’s governing party that have been observed interfering in Canada’s “digital information ecosystem,”

Meanwhile, focus on Russia as a foreign influence in Canadian politics and affairs has been at an all time high after a far-right media outlet in the US linked to a “secret foreign influence campaign” became public last week—with at least 50 videos focused on Canada.

Sailaja Krishnamurti, Associate professor and head of the Department of Gender Studies at Queen’s University says there is not enough attention on the impact of South Asian politics on Canada.

“I really think the average Canadian voter probably doesn’t know a lot about South Asian politics or how closely impacting South Asian politics are on what’s going on in Canada in terms of foreign interference, in terms of the kinds of underlying political ideologies that are circulating,” Krishnamurty told PressProgress.

“I think as a society, we have not really prioritized learning about how global politics are affecting our politicians and our and our governments.”