In October, while young student groups took to the streets in New Delhi and other parts of India demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, a widespread network on X (formerly Twitter) published hundreds of posts framing the protests as an international conspiracy for ‘regime change’. At the centre of this relentless digital campaign was 29-year-old Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) doctoral scholar and All India Students' Association (AISA) National President Neha Bora and their supposed association with French broadcaster France 24. An analysis of 433 posts by a key right-wing influencer handle, @VijayGajeraO, along with over 11,000 amplifying accounts and cross-platform video channels, reveals how an entrenched digital ecosystem twisted Bora’s past work — with state-run media even analysing their anime T-shirt — into fabricated evidence that they were a foreign operative orchestrating street violence in India. View this post on Instagram The story is not an attempt to debunk or dismiss any links but to show how an existing network comes together to push narratives in times of crisis.An Entrenched Ecosystem: Why This Wasn’t Just a Bot AttackThe anatomy of the network targeting Bora relies heavily on repetition, guilt by association, and the steady amplification of half-truths by an established huge base of followers. Out of the 433 posts made by Gajera during the 16-day window from 5 to 20 October, roughly 37 percent linked the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) protest and its prominent faces to foreign nations, intelligence agencies, or international financiers, capturing 40 percent of his total engagement and millions of views.(Please view the network by scrolling on the graphic for detailed information.) Rather than relying on newly created automated bot networks, the amplification was driven largely by an ideological ecosystem. Data analysis of 23 key posts reveals that 86 percent of the accounts reposting these narratives were created before 2025, demonstrating a high degree of network cohesion. When Gajera pushed stories linking Bora and the protesters to French media or European handlers, the very same core group of users who amplified his unfounded political attacks stepped in to carry the foreign conspiracy posts forward. Of the 1,317 accounts that reposted five or more of his France-linked posts, all but 1,280 also reposted his non-foreign attack posts. Furthermore, this primary account did not operate in isolation; it functioned as a central node that cross-pollinated claims with other prominent handles such as @swati_gs, @DisinfoLab, @rahulroushan, and @aravind, creating an echo chamber where unverified allegations were rapidly laundered into accepted facts.A closer look at the 13 France-related posts by Gajera reveals the mechanics of this amplification machinery. These 13 posts were divided across three core claims: Four alleging that Bora worked for France 24, two posts claiming that France 24's coverage of India is propaganda, and ten posts focusing on street violence in France, including assertions that international outlets were hiding French riots while magnifying Indian protests. Archived link here.Archived link here.Archived link here.Archived link here.Apart from a screenshot of an older version of Bora’s Facebook account, Gajera provides no evidence to back these claims.In total, 11,247 unique accounts reposted at least one of these 13 posts. Network mapping shows a tightly bound core at the centre of this distribution. Exactly 3,577 accounts reposted more than one of the three France claims, and 1,161 accounts reposted all three. At the hyper-active core of this cluster, 191 accounts reposted nine or more of the 13 France posts. Even more tellingly, 76 of those heavy reposters had an exact "twin" account in the dataset that reposted the exact same combination of posts, pointing to highly coordinated sharing behaviour. While older accounts formed the bulk of the crowd, a few suspicious new accounts operated at industrial scale. Most notable among them was @IACseason2, an account created on 4 October, just a day before the 16-day tracking window began. Despite having only three followers, it published roughly 6,000 posts at a staggering rate of 350 posts per day, including reposts of all 13 France posts. When checked through X's search and timeline tools for its posts, both returned zero results even though the profile remained public, a phenomenon that occurs when the platform restricts an account's visibility due to spam or manipulation flags.How a Past Translation Job Became a ‘Foreign Media Plot’Among the most prominent allegations deployed by this network to cast suspicion on Bora was the claim that they were secretly an operative for foreign media. On 15 October, a post by Gajera garnered 4,143 reposts and 108,000 views by declaring that France 24 would never inform the public that "Marxist Neha Bora" was working for their channel right before the agitation started. Four days later, on 19 October, the Hindi right-wing portal The Pamphlet amplified the exact same narrative on YouTube through a viral Hindi Short questioning Bora's France 24 connection that drew over 50,000 views. The Quint has reached out to both Bora and France 24 regarding the connection but has not received a response from either of them.The insinuation across these platforms was calculated: Bora was not a genuine student activist, but a paid instrument of French state media executing an international toolkit on Indian streets. Look how fraudulent this foreign media is!They have picked up a protester and are showing it as if they are taking the opinion of some neutral software developer!This report is prepared by Navodita Kumari! https://t.co/5ovSwmwhz0 pic.twitter.com/tWT4zyXpo0— Office Of Vijay Patel (@VijayGajeraO) October 15, 202634 Reports in Eight Days: Debunking the ‘France 24 Blackout’ MythEqually false was the network’s parallel claim, repeated across 10 of @VijayGajeraO’s 13 France-linked posts, that France 24 was deliberately blacking out violence at home while running ‘propaganda’ on Indian protests. A review of France 24’s digital output between 13 and 20 October 2026 shows the broadcaster published 34 distinct English-language reports, liveblogs, and video dispatches tracking the French unrest. From 13 October 2026 to 16 October 2026, coverage followed fourth-week high school blockades over billions in budget cuts, police seizures of protest signs, President Emmanuel Macron’s claim that students were being politically exploited, and warnings from sociologists that the return of the Yellow Vests ('Gilets Jaunes') over fuel prices could overshadow student demands. On 16 October, the network even aired a comparative debate examining Gen Z demonstrations from Paris to Delhi.When violence peaked on 17 and 18 October as over 5.5 lakh demonstrators marched across 110 French cities, France 24 published 16 dedicated reports across those two days alone. Frontline dispatches from Place de la République in Paris and wire reports explicitly headlined ‘Fires and clashes rock France amid massive nationwide protests’ documented the torching of the 19th-century Hôtel de Ville in Limoges, ransacked shops in Paris, Lille, and Marseille, a fatal cardiac arrest in Paris, and a 17-year-old protester losing a hand to a crowd-control grenade in Saint-Étienne. On 18 October 2026, the outlet followed up with a sweeping assessment titled 'Like we had a war': France left reeling after nationwide violent protests, alongside live coverage of Macron’s televised address and 2,400 weekend arrests. Between 19 and 20 October, another 13 reports scrutinised Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s calls for partial curfews in cities hit by riots and looting, France's reckoning with public order policing, and fact-checks debunking AI-generated riot images and a street medic death hoax.Weaponising Everything: How Clothing, Family, and Comrades Were Turned Into SmearsThis baseless claim about French media was accompanied by sustained attempts across multiple languages and platforms to demean Bora and diminish their standing as an independent political leader. Throughout the 20 posts by @VijayGajeraO that directly named Bora, they are rarely addressed by their actual designation as an elected AISA president or a JNU doctoral scholar. Instead, they are dismissively and falsely branded a "Marxist poster girl" and a "product of the CAA protest" who is allegedly fighting for illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and Rohingyas rather than Indian voters. On 15 October, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari took to X and television studios—in remarks captured by Marathi outlet Pudhari News in a segment labelling Bora "Rahul Gandhi's poster girl"—to strip Bora of their independent political identity and paint them as a mere proxy for the Congress leadership. Similarly, right-wing website OpIndia published articles branding Bora a "far-left anarchist" who harboured a "twisted dream" of plunging India into bloodshed. OpIndia even weaponised Bora's clothing, pointing to the same anime T-shirt depicting an icon from Japanese manga series One Piece —a pop-culture motif scrutinised in a viral Live Hindustan video— as proof of their participation in a pan-Asian insurrectionist syndicate.To further strip Bora of their agency, the online ecosystem consistently framed them as a puppet controlled by male handlers or shadowy international cabals. In a post from 10 October, @VijayGajeraO pointed to Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader MA Baby, referring to him as the "boss of Marxist Neha Bora" and highlighting his visit to the Chinese embassy to insinuate that Bora takes marching orders from Beijing. Even Bora's personal background as the child of an Indian Army soldier was turned into an avenue for attack. When Bora spoke about institutional hierarchy during an earlier discussion, The Pamphlet released a video scolding Bora over military ranks that gained over 109,000 views,accusing them of insulting the armed forces. Later, on 20 October, The Pamphlet published another video grouping Bora with content creator Dhruv Rathee and lawyer Prashant Bhushan, accusing the trio of dragging the Indian Army into a regime-change plot. Meanwhile, on 20 October, @VijayGajeraO published a sarcastic post linking Bora and actor Shabana Azmi to London, mocking the idea that they were fighting against corruption while allegedly seeking a "second freedom from London, UK". 16. Believe me, guys, Neha Bora, Shabanam Azmi, and other Marxists are fighting against capitalists and corruption!These people will give us a second freedom from London, UK! pic.twitter.com/MPyAJMdM1k— Office Of Vijay Patel (@VijayGajeraO) October 20, 2026Across these posts, Bora was repeatedly lumped together with CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke,right-to-information activist Saurav Das, Ashutosh Ranka, fact-checker Mohammed Zubair, lyricist Javed Akhtar, and economist Jean Drèze. By placing Bora inside a fabricated web connecting American financier George Soros, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Turkish start-ups, and London handlers, the network sought to convince the public that a young Indian scholar could not possibly organise a street protest without foreign masters pulling the strings.June to July: A 23-Day Hunger Strike and a Minister’s ResignationTo understand how Bora became such a prominent target for this machinery, one must trace the chronological trajectory of the youth agitation across two distinct phases in 2026: first against Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan during the summer, and subsequently against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar in the autumn.The first phase of the movement began on 6 June 2026, when the newly formed CJP held its inaugural demonstration at New Delhi's Jantar Mantar. The protesters demanded the immediate resignation of Pradhan following widespread outrage over the NEET-UG medical entrance examination paper leak and irregularities in Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) marking processes. As the agitation spread across university campuses in June and returned to Jantar Mantar, Bora and AISA became vital pillars of the ground mobilisation. Alongside Ladakhi activist Sonam Wangchuk, Bora sat on a gruelling 23-day hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in July. They remained steadfast even as their health deteriorated, police crackdowns intensified, and Wangchuk was removed from the protest site. During this summer phase, the pushback from pro-government critics and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) affiliates focused on alleging that genuine student grievances over exams were being hijacked by organised left-wing student outfits. When the sustained street pressure finally forced Pradhan to resign on 25 July after 37 days of protest, Bora emerged with immense national visibility. Even during the lull between major agitations in September, right-wing channels sought to sow division within the coalition, with The Pamphlet running a video on September 17 claiming Bora was sidelined by CJP at Jantar Mantar.When The Quint asked Bora about the CJP and AISA not sharing the same stage between these protests in an earlier interview, they said, “As long as they’re fighting on issues concerning students and young people, we will converge on common platforms and fight together… AISA is primarily active in universities and colleges. So, we have our campaigns and protests there. That’s why I think our agendas are divergent at the moment. But we are united in our understanding that young people and young voices need representation.”October Escalation: Police Detentions on the Ground, ‘Regime Change’ Smears OnlineThat national visibility immediately made Bora a prime target when the second phase of the protests began in early October 2026. Following controversies over the Election Commission of India's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which protesters alleged had arbitrarily deleted nearly 13 crore eligible voters, CJP and allied student groups shifted their focus to demanding the resignation of Kumar. During this period, Bora was also sexualised when visuals of them at the protests went viral with some users accusing them of ‘doing this deliberately’. The Quint’s Aliza Noor dove into Bora’s problematic sexualisation in her report here. View this post on Instagram On 1 October, Bora publicly threw down the gauntlet in a statement captured in a viral News 24 clip with 17 lakh views and a widely shared video by journalist Ajit Anjum, declaring that after Pradhan, it was now Kumar's turn to face the youth. After a major rally at Mumbai's Shivaji Park on 2 October, the action moved to New Delhi on 3 and 4. Heavy prohibitory orders were imposed across central Delhi. Bora was repeatedly detained by the Delhi Police—at one point being picked up in an unmarked car—while trying to march towards Jantar Mantar. Amid the chaos on both days, when a female independent journalist alleged that an Assistant Commissioner of Police had molested her during Bora's detention, @VijayGajeraO immediately jumped into the fray with a post falsely accusing the CJP of staging a fake assault alongside handles like @GemsOf_Politics to accuse the protesters of attacking the police.Why are you spreading lies and want to fix an honest officer who got lynched by your CJP goons?Rosy is not a journalist but from your social media team. https://t.co/pG4BAKNylZ pic.twitter.com/fDV5BK1yyI— Office Of Vijay Patel (@VijayGajeraO) October 4, 2026It was on the heels of these street clashes that @VijayGajeraO and his allied network launched their 16-day campaign to reframe the anti-CEC agitation as an international regime-change plot, with no watertight evidence to back these allegations. Between 6 and 7 October, the narrative opened by linking the protest organisers to Chinese Marxists, Qatari food deliveries at Jantar Mantar, and alleged UK handlers like Raj Gill. By 10 October, the day the protesters had called for a massive gathering in Delhi, the online campaign reached a new high. It generated millions of views by alleging that Soros, the Ford Foundation, and European operatives like Hope Loudon were orchestrating the unrest, while simultaneously tying Bora to China through MA Baby.As Bora continued to defy police restrictions on the ground, getting detained nearly half a dozen times in a single week and giving detailed interviews—such as their conversation with Barkha Dutt on Mojo Story on 14 October—the online targeting zeroed in on them personally. On 12 October, as Bora marched alongside opposition leaders in Delhi,@VijayGajeraO published a viral attack piece accumulating 5,271 reposts and 404,000 views, portraying Bora as an anti-national Marxist fighting for Rohingyas and Bangladeshis. Three days later, on 15 October, the network coordinated its largest multi-platform assault against them. Taking a clip in which Bora offered a revolutionary salute to youths in neighbouring countries for fighting against authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism, BJP spokespersons, Hindi television channels like Live Hindustan, and international commentators like Angelo Giuliano—whose posts linking Bora to Muhammad Yunus were reported by Navbharat Times—accused Bora of plotting a violent, Dhaka-style overthrow of the Indian state.On that very same day, @VijayGajeraO dropped the misleading exposé about Bora's past work with France 24, deliberately making accusations of foreign ties based on half-truths.Even as Bora was detained overnight ahead of the 16 October Tiranga March at Connaught Place—an experience they recounted upon their release on 17 October, questioning their overnight custody—the online machinery pivoted on 17 October to comparing AISA and CJP's plans to the street riots in France. #WATCH | Delhi: AISA National President Neha Bora says, "Law and order are being flouted in every possible way. Ordinary citizens are treated as if they were hardened criminals, a practice that has persisted in this country for a long time. The current movement has clearly… https://t.co/s5EqwjaPfG pic.twitter.com/3gAeYHI60r— ANI (@ANI) October 17, 2026By 22 October, Bora was forced to issue a public clarification, stating that the RSS IT cell had deliberately twisted their words out of context to hide the disenfranchisement of 13 crore voters under the SIR exercise.For regressive forces like the RSS-BJP solidarity beyond communalism is an incomprehensible concept, hence, they've now resorted once again to the old tactic of circulating doctored videos and manufacturing outrage around it.A video of mine is being circulated out of context by… pic.twitter.com/KgwQj8lelw— Neha (@neha_aisa) October 21, 2026Beyond the 16 Days: How Disinformation Rewrites Democratic DissentUltimately, the data from those 16 days in October illustrates how modern digital disinformation operates during moments of domestic political crisis. When on-ground police detentions and prohibitory orders failed to keep student leaders like Bora off the streets during the campaigns against Pradhan and Kumar, an entire online infrastructure stepped in to assassinate their character. By taking benign facts, such as a student scholar taking up freelance translation work for an international broadcaster or wearing an anime T-shirt, and feeding them through a coordinated amplification machine of old partisan accounts and high-frequency spam profiles, the network sought to transform a constitutional demand for electoral transparency into an ‘anti-national’ act.From French Connection to a Red-Green Network While this story was being written, we saw violent protests and rioting in France and parts of Europe. On 19 October 2026, a report by American right-wing network Fox News Digital claimed that the student riots in France and the youth protests demanding the resignation of Kumar in India were part of a single "Global Chaos Inc." and a "red-green protest ecosystem" spanning up to 101 communist and Islamist organisations across nine countries. These accounts alleged that sympathetic amplification and funding connected the French and Indian agitations to Shanghai-based American tech millionaire Neville Roy Singham. According to their reports, Singham funds the Manhattan-based People's Forum and the media outlet BreakThrough News, as well as Tricontinental Ltd., which is led by Indian academic Vijay Prashad. Prashad has since denied his involvement in a post on X.The riots in France and Europe, the Fox News report and the subsequent discussion shifted the conversation from France helping students protesting in India to the red-green (communist and Islamist groups) orchestrating chaos in France as well as India. Like other claims made earlier, these sweeping theories too have not been substantiated beyond guilt by association. As noted earlier, this report neither corroborates nor denies the links that this network is attempting to establish. Rather, it highlights the sheer level of online coordination capable of manufacturing and pushing any narrative during moments of domestic political crisis.(The analysis and insights for this report were generated using Arbiter.)