FROM TERROR TO TRIUMPH

India’s Response to Terrorism and the Fight Against Misinformation

India can be rightly proud of its diversity. That is, diversity of the kind that can unite into one whole when called upon, as the country demonstrated after the Pahalgam terror attack during April this year. At that rare moment of our national unity, the whole world stood with us, expressing solidarity in condemning terrorism. Much has happened during the month since. The country’s armed forces have clinically struck the terror hubs nurtured by Pakistan in its soil, and countered the enemy attempts to retaliate by delivering a devastating blow to its combat potential and pride by striking multiple airfields deep within its territory. It was a spectacular military victory that rewrote the methodology of warfare, wherein the Indian forces scored precision hits on a vast array of targets, while foiling every enemy drone and missile attack with absolute efficacy, demonstrating the country’s technological superiority. It was a moment we ought to have savoured, while the whole world looked at us with admiration. The narrative, however, did not exactly play out that way. The world stands confounded on the outcome of the conflict and India once again stands divided! What went wrong?

Singularly overwhelming on the international scene is the Trump factor. An ignoramus and bully he may be, but the US President still gets a world-wide audience, and with his own axe to grind, he shamelessly keeps repeating the foul claim that he brokered the ceasefire that ended the conflict, effectively slighting the Indian victory and equating a miserable country like Pakistan with India. Not just that, he goes onto make statements that imply that Pakistan has actually been the winner in the confrontation. The US has always been notorious for its devious stands, but Trump’s chicanery at this instance beats them all, after his family-owned firm has entered into a mega crypto deal with the Pakistan Army. Indeed, he gets accurate intelligence updates from the CIA. It is entirely plausible that knowing fully well what an incompetent general Asim Munir is, he had him kicked out of the operational command of the army with the ornamental rank of a field marshal. In the bargain, he would have sought to kill two birds in one shot, attributing the promotion to the ‘crushing defeat Munir inflicted on India’, a narrative he (Trump) is desperate to promote. The puppet regime of Pakistan, left merely to obey Trump’s diktat, would be happy too that their national pride is salvaged. There, of course, is the other possibility that Munir promoted himself to field marshal’s rank, as a prelude to taking over power from the weak civilian government, with the blessings of Trump. That would be an arrangement the US would be more comfortable with, as they always found it easier to push their agenda with dictatorial regimes, while branding themselves as champions of democracy. Notwithstanding the distasteful image Trump carries about himself internationally, he has been able to inflict considerable damage to India’s emerging image as a successful nation in every sphere.

Complementing Trump’s anti-India machinations on the international scene is the information blitzkrieg unleashed by Pakistan. While India was decisively emerging the victor in the brief confrontation, Pakistan was stealing the show by effectively winning the information war. A country surviving on international charity and is widely deemed a breeding ground for terrorism; Pakistan has, over the years, been forced to build a robust system of misinformation and propaganda, which is an existential necessity for that country. On the contrary, India, facing no such odds, has been rather complacent about selling our national narrative to the world. Consequentially, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations wing (ISPR), working in tandem with the ISI, was ready to sell its false-flag narrative to the world at large, as soon as the latter’s terrorist cohorts had perpetrated the outrage at Pahalgam. And with the logical assumption that India was bound to strike the terrorist hubs in retaliation, they once again had the emotional narrative ready of India striking civilian targets (and even an outlandish claim of their having downed five Indian Rafale jets complete with fake videos), even before India had even launched the strikes, so much so that they were selling these fabricated stories to the world within half an hour of the strikes. Commonsense must dictate that they could not even have had time to assess the ground situation in such a short span. But then, hot news sells and common man does not go into such nuances. Add to that, India’s account of the events became public only after full eight hours and it took another six hours for India to debunk Pakistan’s fake images with fact check. And the satellite imagery of the destruction of terrorist camps was released even later, a good 48 hours after the operation. By then, the ISPR had the global social media eating out of its hand. Indeed, India’s strikes on Pakistan’s strategic air bases in the second phase was so stunning that their misinformation machinery was caught napping. Nevertheless, in the overall narrative, Pakistan, despite its devious record of being the world’s worst terrorist haven, has effectively been able to play the victimhood card to large chunks of the global community, of being unfairly under attack by a wealthier and more powerful neighbour, who is recklessly risking a nuclear war. This is a different kind of war India has to programme itself to win posthaste, because Pakistan’s military junta is not going to give up terrorism. A ‘hostile India’ is its survival platform.

The Government of India, in a damage-control mode, has launched a major diplomatic campaign, wherein delegations comprising members of the country’s different political parties are touring the world interacting with governments and people of various countries, to tell our story, while projecting India’s democratic, secular and modernistic image. It is unfortunate that at this juncture, the leading opposition party chose to give vent to its intraparty rivalry by taking cudgels against the government on the composition of the delegations. Granting that the government may have chosen the delegates from different parties of its own choice, rather than the parties’ nominees, the composition of the delegations appears eminently suitable for the task, since the members are all well-known political figures who are articulate and noted for their communication skills. The party concerned could very well have shelved their disagreements for the time being. After all, Winston Churchill who famously disparaged Clement Atlee as “a modest man who has much to be modest about”, had to put up with the latter as his deputy in his war time cabinet. That’s the kind of compromise called for from political leaders for a national cause. No wonder our democracy is in such a mess.

Having said that, the personality cult the ruling dispensation is given to is not helping matters either. The propaganda material of Operation Sindoor depicting the prime minister’s picture with an angry expression does not augur well for a united stand by all players and project an unfavourable image of the country abroad. It just about looks as comical as the Trump cartoons doing rounds. Wars are not won by angry images of leaders, neither do they achieve diplomatic gains. The ruling party would do well to tone down its rhetoric projecting the military victory as its own. The ‘Tiranga Marches’ they hold to celebrate the victory should be all party demonstrations and not single party ones. More so in Kashmir, where this is an opportunity to forge a strong united front. The communal remark allegedly made by a ruling party legislator against a lady army officer is abominable. It’s a time when the party in power must go the extra mile to keep everyone on board. Any fissures in India’s image as a nation united would give fodder to the western media, to portray India in a fundamentalist shade. A special session of the parliament being convened early would go a long way in ensuring transparency. Notwithstanding the unambiguous assertion by the MEA that the ceasefire came about through bilateral discussion initiated by Pakistan, an unequivocal statement by the prime minister himself on the floor of the house, contesting Trump’s lie, alone can clear the air on the controversy surrounding it, more so since the US Secretary of Commerce has asserted the Trump mediation to facilitate the ceasefire in a court filing.

Given Pakistan’s track record during the Kargil Conflict, when Nawaz Sharif went knocking the door of Bill Clinton to bail his country out, it is more than likely that Pakistan would have begged for US intervention, after India’s lethal strikes on its airfields in the second phase of Op Sindoor. The US, in turn, would have tried to persuade India for a ceasefire and there is a possibility that India might have sounded receptive to the proposition, provided Pakistan made a direct request to the effect. Pakistan’s DGMO would have then called his Indian counterpart and the rest is history. The twist came when, Trump, naturally given to falsehood and only too sure that Pakistan had no alternative but to request India, went ahead and announced the ceasefire himself, as to have been brokered by him, before it had actually materialized. This kind of intrigues are not uncommon in international diplomacy, except that in this instance, India fell victim to one. There can be no doubt that Trump is lying through his teeth when he says that he ensnared the two countries with the carrot of trade. The sooner India sets the record straight, leaving no ambiguity whatsoever, the better for the country’s image. In international politics, perceptions rule the narratives, and it is imperative that India is perceived as a proud and confident nation that does not need any US patronage.