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Divyansh Kala

On April 22, 2025, in a cowardly and merciless attack in the Pahalgam region of Jammu and Kashmir terrorists killed 26 Indian tourists. A wave of shock, grim andanger took over the minds of the Indian citizens. The inhumane nature of the terrorists had gone to the extent that they killed the people by asking about their religion!

Since many decades, Pakistan’s strategy has been to bleed India through Thousand cuts. This nefarious and heinous attempt was also a part of this grand strategy.

In response to this heinous attack by terrorists, Indian State acted in a decisive manner within 15 days and executed a Military Operation against terrorism and its state shelter Pakistan, named ‘Operation Sindoor’.

However, this operation is different from the previous two operations in various parameters as it has laid down new rules of Deterrence and also signalled towards a shift on the new fronts of war i.e. adoption of the Fifth Generation Warfare Format. This new form of warfare blends kinetic strikes with cyber disruption, drone surveillance and psychological warfare. Prime minister Narendra Modi in his recent address to the nation has indicated towards this new form of warfare by referring it as ‘New Age Warfare’.

The combat theatre was not only tactical rather the manoeuvring front, by using the tools of fifth Generation format of warfare has been utilised by the Pakistan state and other global powers which were not in the favour of India and the formation of a new global structure under India’s leadership. State programmed Propaganda and Misinformation campaigns are the tools which were put in use to change the narrative of war and project it as anti-India amongst the Indian Civil Society also.

Today, narratives determine politics and statecraft, and narratives are determined by agendas. The recent Indo-Pak skirmish exemplifiesthis. We live in an era where information has been weaponised to create havoc in the society, with virulent forces using covert and overt propaganda outlets to further the faultlines of society or even create them where they are not prevalent ultimately effecting conflict and violence.

Propaganda And Disinformation Campaign Against India:

Just with the Pahalgam attack the Pakistan’s social media space had been converted into the breeding ground of misinformation and coordinated propaganda campaign.

Pakistan’s social media claimed the Pahalgam attack as a “false flag operation” staged by Bharat. And a number of hashtags such as #IndianFalseFlag,#PahalgamDramaExposed, #ModiExposed,#IndiaFalseFlagExposed,#IndiaFalseFlagKing had been flooding the social media just after the Pahalgam Attack. A classic example of this theory is that within 48 hours of the Pahalgam attack over 45,000 posts popped up in the social media with the #ModiExposed!

Interestingly a section of global media also amplified the Pakistan’s propaganda. The news stories and coverages after the Pahalgam attack and Operation Sindoor has made a clear case that the foreign media without any shred of evidence enhanced an anti-India narrative.

It is pertinent that media narratives sell ideas which shape our view of reality, modify and change how we perceive the world itself. For this a strategy is used by the media outlets i.e. to frame the stories so they can suit a set narrative and if a story cannot be repurposed to fit a set narrative in the desired way, then altogether delete the news feed.

Just after the Pahalgam attack, BBC in a story titled “More than 20 killed after gunmen open firing on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir” published on April 23! Now the question is why the BBC doesn’t refer to this attack being carried out by terrorists? Why they called this brutal, inhuman massacre being carried out by gunmen? Now, is it the standard norm within the BBC fraternity to use gunmen instead of terrorist! Now let’s see the coverage of BBC on Westminster bridge attack of March 22, 2017. In a story titled “IS planned London terror attacks in 2016” published on September 4, 2017, and of October 03, 2017, titled “Westminster terror attack: Who were the victims?” In both the stories BBC claimed an attack being carried out in their homeland as terror attacks! While in case of India it referred to the attack being carried out by gunmen and a militant attack! This exposes the double standards of the so-called elite media.

Such propaganda didn’t stop here. Just after the execution of Operation SindoorBloomberg published an article on May 13 titled “Chinese Weapons Gain Credibility After Pakistan-India Conflict” wherein it took the reference of Pakistan’s claims that it shot down five Indian Fighter Jets including Rafael! This was a claim for which Pakistan even failed to provide piece of evidence! And a number of global media outlets like CNN, Al Jazeera, Reuters,France24, New York Times etc., knowingly, conceived the fake propaganda of Pakistan that undermines the strategic success of Operation Sindoor on rewriting the new rules of deterrence.

But not only foreign media some of our own so-called intellectuals and media outlets amplified the Pakistan’s voice! Just after the Pahalgam attack The Hindu published the news feed on May 07 titled “Three Indian Jets crash in J&K’s Akhnoor, Ramban and Pampore areas” and this news feed was quoted by China Daily to peddle propaganda against Indian Success! Similarly, Prof Apoorvanand of University of Delhi had written an article for Al Jazeera titled “India’s ‘new normal’ of perpetual war will damage its democracy” questioning the new India’s strategy to deal with its enemies! The best medicine for such propaganda master’s within our frontiers is to sequester them into irrelevance.

The aim of this whole well planned, targeted and coordinated propaganda campaign against India seems to create doubt on the effectiveness of Operation Sindoor, erode the trust of Indian Civil Society from our government and the military, create a perception that Indian actions are ineffective and portray India as aggressive and irresponsible.

However, the join counter-response to such coordinated propaganda by the Indian agencies and Armed forces should be applauded with full hand.The responsive fact checks done by Press information Bureau holds a significance that how to deal with this new format of warfare. The proofs being provided by our armed forces contained the propaganda and misinformation campaign of Pakistan.

With a change in the technology and rapid globalisation process, there are drastic changes across all domains of world affairs. Thus, there is a generational shift in the warfare tactics also. In this era of globalisation, it can easily be concluded that wars can be conducted without guns and explosives. A systematic, planned and coordinated misinformation campaign could be fatal if it is blended with kinetic actions of warfare. The Operation Sindoor has not only exemplified India’s success story in terms of strategic and operational success rather it also shows us that how we have fought with this new form of warfare which is elastic in its nature by giving a suitable elastic defence mechanism for the future. India not only written off the Pakistan’s propaganda being amplified by its allies rather it had messaged the world that this fight was not only between two states,but the fight was between Propaganda and Agenda.Pakistan having a propaganda to claim itself a peace-loving country and a terrorist free country and India having an agenda of making the world a just place of all to live in !

(Divyansh Kala is a columnist, based in Delhi frequently writing on issues related to National Security Policy.)