Sudhir Chaudhary is a Hindu far-right news anchor and mouthpiece of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He is an ardent Islamophobic propagandist who routinely peddles fake news and misinformation on his prime-time shows.

Chaudhary used to work for Zee News and joined Aaj Tak news as a consulting editor in July 2022.

In 2012, a video went viral in which Chaudhary was seen extorting money from steel tycoon and Congress Member of Parliament Naveen Jindal. He was arrested after a complaint by Jindal’s firm accused him of demanding Rs 100 crore in lieu of not airing adverse news against the firm. He was later released on bail.

Since 2014, when PM Narendra Modi came to power, Chaudhary has regularly spewed anti-Muslim hate and bigotry on his prime-time shows. At Zee News, he was the host of prime time ‘Daily News and Analysis (DNA)’ show, and now he hosts ‘Black and White’ on Aaj Tak.

A glance at Sudhir Chaudhary’s history of peddling hate and misinformation:

• Sudhir Chaudhary played a doctored video on his show, accusing the Muslim students of shouting anti-national slogans, ‘Pakistan zindabad’ (long live Pakistan), ‘Bharat tere tukde honge’ (India shall be divided in pieces), etcetera, on the campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi on February 9, 2016. Students were instead raising the slogan ‘Bharatiya court Zindabad’ (long live Indian courts).

• In 2016, Chaudhary sensationally cooked up a fake narrative about the existence of ‘Nano GPS chips’ in Rs. 2,000 notes which would help the government to track the notes anywhere.  The RBI had publicly rejected his claims. The then RBI spokesperson Aplana Killawala told News18, “Such a technology does not exist at the moment in the world, then how can we introduce such a feature?” Sudhir never apologized or felt it necessary to issue a clarification on the matter.

• After a minor Muslim girl was drugged, held captive in a temple, and gang-raped for a week before being strangled and mauled to death with a stone in Kathua, Jammu and Kashmir in January 2018, Sudhir vehemently defended the accused and advocated for their vindication and innocence.

• During the COVID pandemic, Sudhir dedicated many episodes of his show, DNA, propagating that Muslims of Tablighi Jamaat (a Muslim religious organization)  were purposely spreading coronavirus to weaken India’s defense to COVID.

Titles of those episodes are enough to tell the story of his anti-Muslim hateful campaign during the pandemic:

‘Tablighi Jamaat ka Desh se vishwasghat’

(Tablighi Jamaat’s betrayal with the nation)

‘Tablighi Jamaat ke ghatia harkaton ki gawahi’

(Testimony to the dastardly acts of Tablighi Jamaat)

‘Mahamari phaelane wali jamaat ka vishleshan’

(Analysis of the epidemic spreading Jamaat (group)

‘Corona ko dharm ka chola pahnane wali jamaat ka DNA’

(‘DNA’ of the group that throws the cloak of religion on Corona)

Through these vituperative episodes, Chaudhary scapegoated Muslims for the outburst of COVID 19 in India. The hatefilled media campaign led to a gust of anti-Muslim fervor across the nation resulting in rampant assualt on innocent Muslims.

Sudhir Chaudhary on March 11, 2020 presented on his show the anatomy of Jihad through a spurious ‘flow chart’ that mentioned different types of jihad like “Hard jihad , soft jihad, economic jihad , history jihad, media jihad, secularism, population jihad, love jihad, victim jihad, education jihad, direct jihad.”

He presented these types of jihad as manners in which Muslims are trying to subvert India and establish their dominance over the country. The show was meant to demonize Muslims and encourage mass violence against them. Multiple police complaints were filed against him, but that didn’t deter him from mainstreaming conspiracy theories against Muslims in his successive episodes.

Chaudhary also detests democracy and feels that there is ‘too much democracy’ in India. He said in his DNA titled, ‘too much democracy, good or bad’?

“Too much democracy is dangerously sweet to inflict diabetes on the country. Too much democracy hinders development and makes it harder to implement strict laws, people rise to protest and demonstrations on every matter..”,” he said.

His new show ‘Black and White’ on Aajtak replicates the older one in themes, manner, and content. Here are few titles from his new show:

‘Aaj Godse banam Gandhi ka vishleshan’

(An analysis of Godse versus Gandhi today)

‘Bharat me Hindu khatre me hai’?

(Hindus in India are under threat)

In this episode Chaudhary resorted to fear mongering by claiming that Hindus in India are being targeted in a ‘concerted manner’ through a ‘pre-planned conspiracy’ while the screen displayed visuals of Muslim congregation.

‘Britain ki demography kyun badal Rahi hai’?

(Why is the Britain’s demography changing )

He said and suggested that the alleged rise in the Muslim population is a threat to any country be it India or Britain and leads to terrorism and disruption of the country’s original culture.