A Study on Citizen Expectations and State Responses to Curb Spreading of Misinformation in India: Evidence from Public Opinion, Parliamentary Discourse and Policy Analysis

Abstract

All governments are legitimate by virtue of the governed. The central task of the government in India is to satisfy the “social, economic and political promises of its citizens, not merely to discharge a duty of administration”, writes Durga Das Basu, a leading Indian jurist, in his seminal book “Introduction to the Constitution of India” (LexisNexis). The focus of this article is to examine how has the Indian government succeeded in meeting the expectations of its citizens in securing this objective from curbing the spread of falsehood and misinformation and raising awareness through media literacy.

For this, the authors examined responses from 121 respondents in the age group of 13-60 who shared their opinions through a Google-based form. The survey was conducted online across three major cities of Gujarat - Ahmedabad, Surat, and Vadodara. The results are incredibly clear: 87.6% are in favour of a strong law to prevent the spread of disinformation; 83.5% want a mechanism to regulate and monitor social media content by the Indian government; 75.2% want media literacy to be taught in schools; and 55.4% do not know that spreading false news is already a crime punishable under law. Students, housewives, working professionals, and business owners – who represent a cross section of ordinary Indian citizens voiced their concerns in the articulated, multi-dimensional survey.

This article takes a look at the Indian government's actions in light of expectations to prevent information disorder in the society. A detailed thematic analysis of all 98 Parliamentary questions on fake news, which were asked from April 2017 till March 2026, revealed the following themes: public order and communal harmony, the regulatory architecture and its limits, accountability of platforms, the need for dedicated legislation, and new challenges from artificially intelligent and deepfake content. Fifty one questions in the Rajya Sabha and 47 in the Lok Sabha were analysed. Certainly, there is a pattern in all 98 responses to the questions posed and replies given by ministers of various departments of the Government of India. In replies, the Press Council of India is mentioned 53 times, the Fact Check Unit (FCU) of Press Information Bureau (PIB) 55 and the Information Technology Act 2000 has been mentioned 40 times.

Significant number of replies from the government repeat the phrase “existing provisions are sufficient” while the criminal cases registered for fake news and rumours are increasing each year. This paper argues on the basis of the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) data that the number of fake news cases have grown by nine times from 257 in 2017 to 2403 in 2024, and thus it is necessary to make a special law only to prevent circulation of fake news in India. Three Private Member Bills that have proposed legislative frameworks and eight international regulatory approaches have also been discussed and compared. The outcome revealed that the noticeable gap between the expectations from the citizens, legislative concerns and measures taken by executives.