What They Said: Spreading Fear Across India

As rumor-driven panic sent tens of thousands of Northeasterners fleeing southern cities in August 2012, India's leaders scrambled to respond. Here is what they said — in essence — as the crisis unfolded.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, addressing the nation on August 18, assured people from the Northeast that they were safe in every corner of the country, and condemned the rumormongering as an attempt to disturb peace and harmony.

Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde appealed directly to the fleeing students and workers to stay put, promising that the government would ensure their safety — and warned that those spreading rumors would be punished.

Sonia Gandhi, meeting a delegation of Northeastern students in Delhi, told them they were as much a part of India as anyone else and that the Congress party stood with them.

Home Secretary R.K. Singh made the most explosive charge of the crisis: that a large number of the morphed images and inflammatory messages fanning the panic had been uploaded from Pakistan — a claim that added a cross-border dimension to what had looked like a domestic rumor spiral.

The Karnataka government, dealing with the epicenter in Bangalore, set up helplines, deployed police in neighborhoods with large Northeastern populations, and ran special trains — while insisting the city was safe.

The statements, taken together, tell the story of a government trying to fight a 21st-century information weapon with 20th-century tools: appeals, assurances, and — eventually — a 15-day cap on bulk text messages.

(Positions paraphrased from contemporary reporting; this is a summary of public statements, not verbatim transcripts.)