From giving clean chit to Islamists in Delhi riots to guilt-tripping Hindus for Ram Mandir: Meet Hannah Ellis Petersen, The Guardian’s anti-India propagandist spotted at CJP protest

On Saturday (6th June), the Cockroach Janta Pary (CJP) held its much-anticipated ‘protest’ at the Jantar Mantar in Delhi. AAP worker turned CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke landed in India from the United States to lead the protests. Several AAP cheerleaders, masquerading as neutral, anti-establishment crusaders, also flocked in large numbers to the protest site in the hopes of getting political mileage. While the congregation of cockroaches was about demanding ‘accountability’ from the government over CBSE and NEET controversy, the politically motivated agenda was crystal clear from the start. The picture of a woman, however, caught the sight of many protestors. Unlike the brown-skinned protestors, this variant had blonde hair and white skin. Social media user Sameer inquired, “What is a foreigner doing at the protest? Tourist visa doesn’t allow any such activity & @DelhiPolice must immediately take action. Cancel her visa and deport her.” Soon, the identity of the white woman became evident. She was Hannah Ellis-Petersen, the South Asian correspondent of the British daily, The Guardian. What is a foreigner doing at the protest? Tourist visa doesn’t allow any such activity & @DelhiPolice must immediately take actionCancel her visa and deport her @MEAIndia pic.twitter.com/sKgcWbKOqV— Sameer (@BesuraTaansane) June 6, 2026 All you need to know about Hannah Ellis-Petersen Hannah Ellis-Petersen has a history of downplaying love jihad and falsely associating alleged cases of ‘honour killings’ as consequences of the phenomenon. During the anti-CAA protests in January 2020, she was busy presenting a distorted version of the Citizenship Amendment Act to the readers of The Guardian. Instead of highlighting how the law seeks to fast-track the citizenship of persecuted religious minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who have been staying illegally in India, the propaganda artist claimed that a women-led protest against the humanitarian law was somehow a counter-narrative of ‘toxic masculinity of Modi’s Hindutva politics.’ Screengrab of the tweets by Hannah Ellis-Petersen She also attempted to give a clean chit to the Islamists, who ran riots in the National Capital in February 2020, by labelling the anti-Hindu carnage as a ‘clash between Hindus and Muslims.’ Hannah Ellis-Petersen had also lamented how the riots did not affect the US-India ties and instead, the Modi government received praise for upholding religious freedom in the country from the President of the United States. The ‘journalist’ falsely presented restrictions on the wearing of religious clothing in Karnataka schools as ‘hijab ban’ in South India. She also claimed that the reclamation of disputed structures built on top of Hindu temple was ‘Hindu nationalists rewriting India’s history.’ Screengrab of the tweets by Hannah Ellis-Petersen Hannah Ellis-Petersen also wrote several provocative pieces for The Guardian where she tried to guilt-trip Hindus for the Ram Janmabhoomi verdict and the Pran Prathistha of the Ram Mandir. She also tried to dilute the significance of the events by referencing the disputed structure that once stood atop the grand Hindu temple. Moreover, the propaganda artist linked the outbreak of violence in Leicester City of England in 2022 with ‘Hindu nationalism’, despite no evidence for the same. In reality, the Centre for Democracy, Pluralism and Human Rights (CDPHR) in its fact-finding report pointed out that Islamists weaponised misinformation in Lecister, committed human rights violations against Hindus and attempted ethnic cleansing that resulted in the temporary displacement of Hindu families. “Institutional Hinduphobia and bias was deduced through the analysis of the reporting of the Leicester unrest by the media houses BBC and the Guardian when compared to the verified police reports, witness accounts and corroborating reports from think tanks,” the report had said. The propaganda of Hannah Ellis-Petersen is not limited to shaming the Hindu community or downplaying atrocities committed against them by Islamists. She has authored articles, wherein she dehumanised Hindus participating in Kumbh Mela as ‘Covid superspreaders’ despite no evidence to back her claims. Typical propagandist she is, far from journalism. She is writing hit job on you and few more. Eventually will publish in a series, whether you gove remarks or not. pic.twitter.com/GCBZMmuozg— The Hawk Eye (@thehawkeyex) March 24, 2024 The ‘journalist’ had also given a clean chit to the actual superspreaders of Covid-19 aka the members of the Tablighi Jamaat, who at one time accounted for 30% of all cases of Coronavirus in the country. Here’s an important — sensitive, powerful, and moving — truth-telling podcast by The Guardian’s South Asia Correspondent, Hannah Ellis-Petersen. Caution: Listeners may find this distressing: “India’s Covid disaster: a crisis for the world”: https://t.co/tlQRsIHilW— N. Ram (@nramind) April 27, 2021 Nonetheless, her grim presentation and eventual fearmongering about India’s Covid-19 situation in 2021 drew praise from ‘journalist’ turned ‘document cropper’ N Ram, infamous for peddling disinformation about the Rafael deal. In March 2024, OpIndia had stonewalled Hannah Ellis-Petersen’s hit-job attempt against Hindu activist Kajal Hindustani. A month later, she co-authored a contentious article (archive) titled ‘Indian government ordered killings in Pakistan, intelligence officials claim.’ At the very onset, it described Pakistani terrorists as ‘individuals’ who were supposedly assassinated by the Indian government. It relied heavily on anonymous sources, particularly from the Pakistani intelligence, to demonise PM Modi as a facilitator of ‘extra-territorial killings.’ In doing so, The Guardian ended up acknowledging him as a defender of India’s security interests from external threats. Screengrab of the article by The Guardian Interestingly, Hannah Ellis-Petersen had also turned down the offer of OpIndia’s Editor-in-Chief, Nupur J Sharma, for a livestreamed debate. She was, however, part of a brain-dead documentary, aimed at peddling disinformation about Hindus and India.