India blocks Austrian economist Gunther Fehlinger-Jahn’s X account after controversial ‘Dismantle India’ post

The government of India, on September 5, ordered Twitter (formerly X) to block the account of Austrian economist Gunther Fehlinger-Jahn. This was a reaction to his provocative post where he called to ‘dismantle India’. The post contained a provocative map partitioning India with territories divided among Pakistan, Khalistan, Nepal and Bangladesh.

“I call to dismantle India into ExIndia. @narendramodi is Russia's man. We need friends of freedom for @KhalistanNet," wrote Gunther Fehlinger-Jahn. The post went viral after the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology flagged it on X and directed it to withhold the account in India.

The post comes just after PM Modi returns from the SCO summit in Tianjin, China, where he met with the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Chinese President. Fehlinger-Jahn serves as the President of the Austrian Committee for NATO membership of Ukraine, Kosovo, Bosnia and Austria. He also sits on the Board of the Action Group for Regional Economic Integration of Southern Balkans. He is known for a hardline stance against Russia and other enemies of the West, including China and India.

There was a widespread reaction and backlash online. Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi. condemned the action and demanded that the MEA take the matter up with the Austrian embassy in India. A senior official of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs called him a 'loony' who holds no official position.

With the SCO summit, Russia and China have attempted to consolidate the global south into a power block and renewed calls for the multipolar world order. Putin, in a press conference, called the unipolar world order unfair and called for the abolition of "hegemons…The idea is that the world must be multipolar, which means that all the actors of international communication and international relations must be equal, and there must be no one more equal than the others. And a unipolar world must cease to exist."