India targets Jeff Bezos over Amazon and Washington Post

Jeff Bezos’ ownership of The Washington Post has complicated business for his much bigger company, Amazon, in Trump-era Washington.

Now the same thing could be happening in New Delhi under India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, who has increasingly sought to rein in both the international news media and foreign technology companies.

Last week, a senior official of Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party criticised The Post’s coverage of the country during a visit by Bezos to announce new investments in India, one of Amazon’s fastest-growing markets.

The official, Vijay Chauthaiwale, urged Bezos to return to Washington and “impart some wisdom” to Post employees about the bright prospects for India that Bezos was touting in New Delhi.

“Otherwise your charm offensive is likely to be waste of time and money,” Chauthaiwale wrote in a tweet Thursday.

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, and his girlfriend TV presenter Lauren Sanchez pose after arriving at a company event in Mumbai, India, Jan 16, 2020. REUTERS

On the same day, Modi’s commerce minister, Piyush Goyal, dismissed Bezos’ announcement of a fresh $1 billion investment to help small businesses in the country. “It is not as if they are doing a favour to India,” Goyal told reporters. He then referred to the antitrust investigation of Amazon and its chief rival that Indian regulators opened the day before Bezos arrived.

Although both men later tempered their remarks, the double-barrelled assault on The Post and Amazon is reminiscent of President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly attacked Bezos, The Post’s coverage of his administration and Amazon — often all in the same tweet.

Over the past year and a half, the Modi government and its BJP allies have grown increasingly strident in their criticism of foreign news media. That criticism swelled into a cacophony over international news coverage of the government’s decision in August to strip away the statehood of the predominantly Muslim region of Jammu and Kashmir, send in troops, shut down the internet, and arrest community leaders and opposition politicians.

The government has increased limits on foreign news outlets, including shortening the duration of journalists’ visas and preventing them from going to Kashmir and to Assam, the centre of a fight over a new citizenship law that is perceived as anti-Muslim.

© 2019 New York Times News Service