India’s Most Potent Weapon
The one truth that stands out during the ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan is India’s unity. This is reiterated during each and every one of Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri’s daily official briefings where he has underlined that what Pakistan was trying to do in Pahalgam was to try and create a communal divide in India. As Misri said, “India’s steadfast unity is a challenge to Pakistan”. This is one reason why he made it a point to nail Pakistan’s fake propaganda that India was targeting mosques in Pakistan by clarifying that our target was only sites of terrorist infrastructure. Misri also used the official podium to deny Pakistan’s false claims that India was targeting the Nankana Sahib gurudwara situated in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Instead he pointed out how Pakistan had targeted a gurudwara in Poonch as well as a convent belonging to the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate. “This is a new low even for Pakistan” observed India’s Foreign Secretary. What also needs to be highlighted is the support and unity amongst the locals in the Valley who were the first responders after the Pahalgam attack, risking their lives to save the tourists. This, along with J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s very mature response, stating that he won’t use a tragedy to make the case for restoration of statehood, has sent a very positive message of unity across the country. And indeed Misri is right when he says that our unity and communal harmony is India’s most potent weapon against Pakistan.
Battling the Air Waves
The battle is not just being fought on land and in air but also in the media, both social and mainstream, Indian and Western. India has fielded some of its best voices, apart from the daily briefings, conducted in a measured, restrained manner by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri along with Colonel Sofiya Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh. There are other envoys too such as Vikram Doraiswamy, India’s High Commissioner to the UK. During an interview to the western media, when Doraiswamy was asked to counter Pakistan’s claim that India was supporting the Baloch Liberation Army, he pulled out a photograph of uniformed Pakistan Army personnel standing beside a known terrorist Hafiz Abdul Rauf along with members of the banned Jamaat ud Dawa near the coffins of three terrorists killed during Operation Sindoor and asked, “If you are giving terrorists state funerals what does that say about your system and the terrorist infrastructure?” Our ambassador to the US, Vinay Kwatra nailed it when he was asked as to whether India was at war with Pakistan. He replied that, India is at war with terrorism.
In this context, one must also applaud the Opposition leaders who are not only supporting the government action in the domestic media but also actively engaging the western media to counter Pakistan’s fake narrative and propaganda with a measured articulation of India’s stance. One person who stands out is Shashi Tharoor, Congress MP and also the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs. Given his own rapport and recognition in the global media, his interviews are getting a lot of traction. The unity that we spoke of earlier is also visibly present in our political class as well.
Lessons from Balakot
The one lesson that India has learnt from the 2019 Balakot surgical strike is the importance of countering Pakistan’s fake narrative. Post Balakot, India had not initially put out the visual evidence of the strikes, which led Pakistan to create a doubt as to their veracity. This time around, when announcing Operation Sindoor, the official briefing came with visual proof of the strikes and also explained in great detail as to why the targets were chosen. They made it clear that no military or civilian targets were chosen or hit, and how the 7 May strikes were not an attack but a non-escalatory, precise and controlled response to the dastardly killings in Pahalgam. Later when Pakistan made a false claim that India had targeted innocent civilians Misri brought out a picture that showed a known terrorist Hafiz Abdul Rauf standing alongside unformed members of Pakistan’s military at a funeral of three terrorists killed by India during Operation Sindoor. This incidentally is the same picture that Vikram Doraiswamy also displayed in UK during his interaction with the media there. The Press Information Bureau has also been very nimble in countering fake news put out by Pakistan on social media.
In fact a large chunk of India’s daily official briefing is to counter what Misri rightly calls the tissue of lies being spread by Pakistan, not just on social media but also by its state agencies. On the morning of 10 May, India came armed with proof to nail Pakistan’s lie that it had destroyed our Air Force bases at Sirsa, Suratgarh and the S-400 base at Adampur. The proof was in the form of visual, time-stamped photographs to show no such damage had been done as was being claimed by Pakistan.
As I said earlier, the battle is not just being fought physically on the ground but also in terms of narrative building.