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Al Jazeera
3 days ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
The most dangerous weapon in South Asia is not nuclear
When India launched Operation Sindoor and Pakistan replied with Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos, the world braced for escalation. Analysts held their breath. Twitter exploded. The Line of Control – that jagged scar between two unfinished imaginations of nationhood – lit up again. But if you think what happened earlier this month was merely a military exchange, you've missed the real story. This was a war, yes, but not just of missiles. It was a war of narratives, orchestrated in headlines, hashtags, and nightly newsrooms. The battlefield was the media. The ammunition was discourse. And the casualties were nuance, complexity, and truth. What we witnessed was the culmination of what scholars call discursive warfare — the deliberate construction of identity, legitimacy, and power through language. In the hands of Indian and Pakistani media, every act of violence was scripted, every image curated, every casualty politicised. This wasn't coverage. It was choreography. On May 6, India struck first. Or, as Indian media framed it, India defended first. Operation Sindoor was announced with theatrical pomp. Twenty-four strikes in twenty-five minutes. Nine 'terror hubs' destroyed. Zero civilian casualties. The villains — Jaish-e-Muhammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba, 'terror factories' across Bahawalpur and Muzaffarabad in Pakistan – were said to be reduced to dust. The headlines were triumphalist: 'Surgical Strikes 2.0', 'The Roar of Indian Forces Reaches Rawalpindi', 'Justice Delivered'. Government spokespeople called it a 'proportionate response' to the Pahalgam massacre that had left 26 Indian tourists dead. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh declared: 'They attacked India's forehead, we wounded their chest'. Cinematic? Absolutely. Deliberate? Even more so. Indian media constructed a national identity of moral power: a state forced into action, responding not with rage but with restraint, armed not just with BrahMos missiles but with dharma – righteous duty and moral order. The enemy wasn't Pakistan, the narrative insisted — it was terror. And who could object to that? This is the genius of framing. Constructivist theory tells us that states act based on identities, not just interests. And identity is forged through language. In India's case, the media crafted a story where military might was tethered to moral clarity. The strikes weren't aggression — they were catharsis. They weren't war — they were therapy. But here's the thing: therapy for whom? Three days later, Pakistan struck back. Operation Bunyan Marsoos — Arabic for 'iron wall' — was declared. The name alone tells you everything. This wasn't just a retaliatory strike; it was a theological assertion, a national sermon. The enemy had dared to trespass. The response would be divine. Pakistani missiles reportedly rained down on Indian military sites: brigade headquarters, an S-400 system, and military installations in Punjab and Jammu. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif proclaimed that Pakistan had 'avenged the 1971 war', in which it had capitulated and allowed Bangladesh to secede. That's not battlefield strategy. That's myth-making. The media in Pakistan amplified this narrative with patriotic zeal. Indian strikes were framed as war crimes, mosques hit, civilians killed. Photographs of rubble and blood were paired with captions about martyrdom. The response, by contrast, was precise, moral, and inevitable. Pakistan's national identity, as constructed in this moment, was one of righteous victimhood: we are peaceful, but provoked; restrained, but resolute. We do not seek war, but we do not fear it either. The symmetry is uncanny. Both states saw themselves as defenders, never aggressors. Both claimed moral superiority. Both insisted the enemy fired first. Both said they had no choice. The symmetry was also apparent in the constructed image of the enemy and the delcared victims. India portrayed Pakistan as a terror factory: duplicitous, rogue, a nuclear-armed spoiler addicted to jihad. Pakistani identity was reduced to its worst stereotype, deceptive and dangerous. Peace, in this worldview, is impossible because the Other is irrational. Pakistan, in turn, cast India as a fascist state: led by a majoritarian regime, obsessed with humiliation, eager to erase Muslims from history. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the aggressor. India was the occupier. Their strikes were framed not as counterterrorism but as religious war. In each case, the enemy wasn't just a threat. The enemy was an idea — and an idea cannot be reasoned with. This is the danger of media-driven identity construction. Once the Other becomes a caricature, dialogue dies. Diplomacy becomes weakness. Compromise becomes betrayal. And war becomes not just possible, but desirable. The image of the Other also determined who was considered a victim and who was not. While missiles flew, people died. Civilians in Kashmir, on both sides, were killed. Border villages were shelled. Religious sites damaged. Innocent people displaced. But these stories, the human stories, were buried beneath the rubble of rhetoric. In both countries, the media didn't mourn equally. Victims were grieved if they were ours. Theirs? Collateral. Or fabricated. Or forgotten. This selective mourning is a moral indictment. Because when we only care about our dead, we become numb to justice. And in that numbness, violence becomes easier the next time. What was at stake during the India-Pakistan confrontation wasn't just territory or tactical advantage. It was legitimacy. Both states needed to convince their own citizens, and the world, that they were on the right side of history. Indian media leaned on the global 'war on terror' frame. By targeting Pakistan-based militants, India positioned itself as a partner in global security. Sound familiar? It should. It's the same playbook used by the United States in Iraq and Israel in Gaza. Language like 'surgical', 'precision', and 'pre-emptive' doesn't just describe, it absolves. Meanwhile, Pakistan's media leaned on the moral weight of sovereignty. India's strikes were framed as an assault not just on land, but on izzat, honour. By invoking sacred spaces, by publicising civilian casualties, Pakistan constructed India not as a counterterrorist actor but as a bully and a blasphemer. This discursive tug-of-war extended even to facts. When India claimed to have killed 80 militants, Pakistan called it fiction. When Pakistan claimed to have shot down Indian jets, India called it propaganda. Each accused the other of misinformation. Each media ecosystem became a hall of mirrors, reflecting only what it wanted to see. The guns fell silent on May 13, thanks to a US-brokered ceasefire. Both governments claimed victory. Media outlets moved on. Cricket resumed. Hashtags faded. But what lingers is the story each side now tells about itself: We were right. They were wrong. We showed strength. They backed down. This is the story that will shape textbooks, elections, military budgets. It will inform the next standoff, the next skirmish, the next war. And until the story changes, nothing will. And it can change. Narratives constructed on competing truths, forged in newsrooms and battlefields, performed in rallies and funerals, are not eternal. Just as they were constructed, they can be deconstructed. And that can happen only if we start listening not to the loudest voice, but to the one we've learned to ignore. So the next time war drums beat, ask not just who fired first, but who spoke last. And ask what story that speech was trying to tell. Because in South Asia, the most dangerous weapon isn't nuclear. It's narrative. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
Time of India
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
If US can extradite terrorists to India, Pakistan can also give us Hafiz Saeed, Lakhvi: Indian envoy
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Pakistan should hand over key terrorists Hafiz Saeed , Sajid Mir, and Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi to India, just like the US did with one of the masterminds of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, India's Ambassador to Israel J P Singh has said. Contending that terrorism is a global menace, Singh also called for the formation of an international coalition against an interview with Israeli TV channel i24 on Monday, Singh stressed that India's Operation Sindoor against Pakistan is "paused" and "not over".Narrating the incidents leading up to India's offensive, Sing said that the operation was against terror groups in Pakistan."The terrorists killed people based on their religion. They asked people about their religion before killing them, and 26 innocent lives were lost," the Indian ambassador said on the Pahalgam attack of April 22."India's operation was against terror groups and their infrastructure to which Pakistan responded by attacking India's military installations", he a long list of terror attacks in India that originated from Pakistan, Singh said that the "root cause is these two groups - Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba ".The leaders of Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was behind the Mumbai attack , in which several Jews were also killed, continue to roam free, he noted."They need to do a very simple thing - when the preamble includes goodwill and friendship, they just need to hand over these terrorists to us," the envoy out that the United States recently extradited Rana, who was involved in the Mumbai attack, the diplomat, who has also served in Pakistan in the past, said that Islamabad could also do the same."When the US can hand over these culprits, why can't Pakistan hand over? They have to simply hand over Hafeez Saeed, Lakhvi, Sajid Mir, and things will be over", he if the understanding reached between the two nations is the 'end of the matter' for India, Singh responded by saying that "the ceasefire is still holding on, but we have made it very clear that Operation Sindoor is paused, it's not yet over".India carried out precision strikes under 'Operation Sindoor' on terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir early on May 7 in response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 the Indian action, Pakistan attempted to attack Indian military bases on May 8, 9 and 10. The Indian forces launched a fierce counter-attack on several Pakistani military and Pakistan reached an understanding on May 10 to end the conflict after four days of intense cross-border drone and missile strikes."The fight against terrorism will continue. We have set a new normal, and the new normal is that we will follow an offensive strategy. Wherever terrorists are, we have to kill those terrorists and destroy their infrastructure. So it is still not over, but as we speak, the ceasefire is still intact," Singh India's attack on Pakistan's Nur Khan base on May 10 as a game changer, Singh said that it created panic in Pakistan and their Director General of Military Operation (DGMO) reached out to their Indian counterpart seeking a the question of suspension of the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) that Pakistan has described as "an act of war", the Indian envoy said that the two key words that guided the treaty were never honoured, and India on the contrary, was always battling against terror attacks emanating from Pakistan."IWT was signed in 1960, and the preamble of the treaty includes two key words - goodwill and the past so many years, what we have seen (is that) we were allowing water to flow, and what was Pakistan doing - they were allowing terror (attacks) to come on the Indian side," Singh noted."There was a lot of frustration among people that this could not go on like this. Our Prime Minister said that blood and water cannot flow together and that is the reason that we decided to put this IWT in abeyance," he added."Terror must stop", the Indian ambassador asserted that for a treaty like this to be operational, Pakistan must stop cross-border terrorism."While IWT is in abeyance, another IWT is operational - Operation Sindoor is India's War Against Terrorism," he Pakistan's offer to investigate the Pahalgam attack, Singh dismissed it, describing it as a deflection strategy."What has happened to the Mumbai attack? What has happened to the Pathankot air base attack? What has happened to the Pulwama attack?" he questioned."We have given them dossiers after dossiers - we have given them technical inputs. America has shared with them evidence. Everything is there, but what have they done?" he asked."Lakhvi, who was the main planner of the Mumbai attack, is still roaming freely. Hafiz Saeed, the head of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the planner and executioner of the Mumbai attack, is roaming freely. So we can't believe them," Singh that terrorism is a global menace, the Indian envoy called for greater cooperation among the countries faced with the challenge."At an international level, all those countries, including India, Israel and many other countries that face the brunt of terrorism, we need to expand our diplomatic reach, we need to cooperate, we need to form a coalition against terrorism and most importantly against the supporters of these terrorist groups" he concluded by saying that "our prime minister has made it very clear - very clear - that we have zero tolerance on terrorism. We are not going to accept this cross-border terrorism".
Indian Express
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Operation Sindoor shouldn't stop till terrorism is wiped out: Victims' wives
The news of India carrying out strikes on the headquarters of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir brought a sense of relief to the families of those killed in the Pahalgam terror attack on tourists two weeks ago. Of the 26 tourists killed in the Kashmir Valley on April 22, three victims – Sameer Guha (52), Bitan Adhikari (40), and Manish Ranjan Mishra (41) — hailed from West Bengal. Speaking to The Indian Express on Wednesday following the Indian Army's 'Operation Sindoor', the wife of Sameer Guha said: 'We wanted this airstrike. We request our government not to stop now and that they should continue with these airstrikes until terrorism is completely eliminated so that what happened to us does not happen to anyone else.' Thanking the government for the military operation against Pakistan, Sharvari Guha, who lives in Kolkata, said: 'Our loss is irreplaceable. My daughter is still in trauma. This should never ever happen again. We are thankful and happy for what the government did.' Sameer Guha, a Central government employee under the Ministry of Statistics, was visiting Kashmir with his wife and daughter when the terrorists reached a tourist spot in Pahalgam and killed him. Bitan Adhikari was also in Kashmir with his wife, Sohini, and their three-year-old son, when the terrorists attacked the tourists and killed Bitan in front of them. He was visiting his Kolkata home from the US, where he worked in an IT firm. 'I lost my husband. I appealed for justice from the government, and they have taken action. I am thankful to the government. I pray that no woman ever loses her husband in this way or the child should ever have to see what we witnessed,' Sohini said. Bitan's elder brother Bibhu said, 'The government should take all necessary action to wipe out terrorism completely, and we will welcome such steps. Many innocent people have lost their lives due to terrorist activity. So, steps should be taken so that nowhere in the country innocent lives are lost. Till now, I do not know if any of the terrorists who were there in Pahalgam on that day have been caught or killed. This is probably the first step.' Meanwhile, in Jhalda in Purulia, the news of 'Operation Sindoor' was a mix of relief and enduring sorrow for the family of Manish Ranjan, the IB officer killed in the terror attack. 'Any country that gives shelter to terrorists should face such consequences. Fight against terrorists must continue,' said Manish's father, Mangalesh Mishra. 'I lost my son…My entire world is shattered… He was the best son. He always made us proud… I had a bypass surgery… We are trying to be strong. I welcome Operation Sindoor, but what we have lost is far more painful,' Mishra added. 'My dearest daughter-in-law is in her worst phase. She faints every now and then,' Manglesh said.
The Print
07-05-2025
- Politics
- The Print
We can defeat Pakistan without war. Operation Sindoor's India's strongest reply to Pahalgam
Named Operation Sindoor, it is clearly a message to the Hindu women who were widowed in Pahalgam's jihadi massacre of last month: Modi has just told them that the government shares their pain. In Wednesday's post-midnight retributive missile attacks on nine Pakistani terror hubs, including Bahawalpur and Muridke, home bases of the Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba respectively, he has sent multiple messages that will resonate both at home and abroad. In theory, the operation, which involved missile strikes by the Indian army and the air force without crossing into Pakistani territory, could have been named anything. But Modi chose the word Sindoor because it has resonance all over India, barring perhaps the south, and communicates restorative justice to the bereaved. The message to Pakistan, which was clearly behind the Pahalgam outrage, could not have been clearer. No amount of Chinese help with military equipment and political support can save you from us when we are determined to hit back. Especially since Pakistan thought it was better prepared for retribution this time than after Uri and Pulwama. The third message is to the world community at large, which has been queasy about the prospect of a full-blown war between two nuclear powers. By restricting the targets to known terror hubs, India has clearly shown that it has exercised maximum restraint. In a post-Sindoor official statement, the defence ministry made this explicit: 'Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature. No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted. India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution.' Translated, this means if Pakistan does anything terrible and retaliates beyond acceptable levels of formal retaliation, which India can take on the chin, the world will be responsible for the consequences. The US and European powers should take note. Also read: Modi avenged my husband's death with Op Sindoor, says wife of Kanpur trader killed in Pahalgam attack The fourth message is for China, and this messaging involves not only the Sindoor strikes, but the trade deal signed with the United Kingdom. It is not a coincidence that both India and the UK concluded the deal just a few hours before the missile strikes. Few people are in any doubt that China may have egged Pakistan to get Indians angry enough to start a full-scale war without thinking through the consequences. Any such wider war would have damaged India's growth prospects. China has been seriously worried not only about the general rise of India, but the willingness of the US, UK and the European Union to sign trade deals with India, possibly at the cost of China in the long run. In the short run, the world needs China since it has become over-dependent on cheap Chinese imports to keep consumer prices down. The fifth message is to our own opposition parties, which have been given adequate video footage on the missile strikes in Pakistan, including live coverage of areas where the damage was done. They can not demand 'proof' like they did after Uri and Balakot. To be sure, the Sindoor strikes are not going to deter Pakistan from pursuing its terror ops in India. If at all anything does deter, it will be the Indus Water Treaty, in which India holds the high cards as an upper riparian state that can control water flows by building a few more dams and diverting supplies elsewhere in the short term. On the other hand, it is worth acknowledging that India had fewer kinetic options this time as Pakistan would have been more prepared. It would have fully war-gamed our responses, and, moreover, had China's full backing, complete with real-time intelligence sharing, military supplies and diplomatic support. Given this context, our best response in the short term was to strike with strategic restraint, and not indulge in a massive one-time retributive act. The latter is what China would have hoped for, for it would have given investors cause for pause on their Indian investments. This is a game of Chinese Checkers rather than merely Pakistani Perfidies, as has been well articulated by Sreemoy Talukdar in an article in Pahalgam happened just when many global manufacturers, including Apple, are thinking of relocating more parts of their supply chains, especially those that focus on the US market, to India. China+1 is happening, and this is precisely what China does not want. India's rise and booming stock markets have become a big deal for China, especially since Donald Trump's tariff wars are directed at China. His administration has indicated that India may be one of those countries with which it may sign a trade deal later this year. China will not let India benefit from its loss if it can help it. But, as the timing of the UK free trade deal shows, India knows what needs to be done. The tell-tale signs of India's having limited options can be understood from these parallel developments after Pahalgam. It is not a coincidence that China backed Pakistan's call for an 'impartial probe' into the Pahalgam massacre when there were Pakistani finger-prints all over it. It is not a coincidence that Russia, which needs China on its side till the Ukraine war ends in its favour, also called for a peaceful resolution of these tensions, as if there is some kind of moral equivalence between Pakistan's jihadi terror and India's efforts to seek justice for slain Hindus. It is not a coincidence that Iran wants to broker peace between India and Pakistan, when it is under pressure from the US to abandon its nuclear plans and China is backing it. It is not a coincidence that just when India was weighing its kinetic options, a Turkish navy vessel began a goodwill visit to Karachi. It is not a coincidence that a key aide of Bangladesh's Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus talked about Bangladesh invading the seven north-eastern states if India attacked Pakistan. And, of course, it is no coincidence at all that Pakistan had begun violating the line of control (LoC) with daily firing. It has taken a BSF jawan hostage. India retaliated by detaining a Pakistani Ranger. Put simply, the Chinese and Pakistanis had put in too many deterrents in advance for anyone to believe that the Pahalgam massacre of Hindus was anything other than a plot to trigger a wider conflict. That would have tied India down with security issues instead of allowing it to forge ahead economically. Given this background, it is important for those demanding a stronger response than Operation Sindoor to pipe down, for that could cause economic harm to us. We will get our full revenge, but we must bide our time, and that time is not now. Right now, we must think only about our long-term strategy on how to deal with three-and-a-half threats: from Pakistan, China, Bangladesh and our own internal enemies and ill-wishers. We have to build 'comprehensive national power', which includes heavy investments in building military capabilities, boosting domestic growth by deregulating and encouraging entrepreneurship, and negotiating social harmony through dialogue and two-way compromises with the minorities and some caste groups. The caste census announced by the Modi government must be seen in this light, though it won't solve anything. At the very least, our long-term plans – which means a decade of work at least – must include a steady increase in defence budgets to 3-4 percent of GDP, a big step-up in cyber and information warfare capabilities, and a sharp hike in internal security budgets. These can be paid for by whittling down the Centre's spending on things that the states ought to be doing: funding viable agriculture and serving the poor, for example. States must get more fiscal powers, and so must local bodies, by which one means mostly cities, which is where jobs will be created. Deregulation must be the slogan for the next decade so that entrepreneurship and risk-taking take off vertically. Our revenge on Pakistan has to be plotted for the long-term, which includes its dismemberment, and this means expanding covert support to Baloch, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sind rebels, and neutering Bangladesh by arming its minorities to protect themselves and also tying down its army, preventing it from adventurism around our Chicken's neck. We should have counter-measures in place to slice off Rangpur (near the Siliguri corridor Chicken's neck) and Chittagong port (which also has a chicken's leg vulnerability through Tripura), when required. As for China, we must bide our time for another 10 years, while quietly getting their supply chains to relocate to India. By 2035, India could be a 10-trillion-dollar economy with a capable military that has an effective air force, a strong navy that rules the Indian Ocean, and an agile army that can hold any territory or fight cyber and information wars. And yes, the Indus Water Treaty must not only be kept in abeyance, but scrapped after building many more dams and pipelines to divert the water whenever Pakistan chooses to harm us. That would be a better deterrent to Pakistani adventurism than any short-term kinetic action. The best revenge for Pahalgam is to succeed against the odds, despite Chinese and Pakistani efforts to slow down India's rise. This is not the time for war, but to invest in war capabilities, so that ultimately we can win without fighting. As Chanakya, Sun Tzu and Machiavelli could have told us. R Jagannathan is Editorial Director, Swarajya. He tweets at @TheJaggi. Views are personal. This article was originally published on the Swarajya magazine website.
Spectator
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
Is nuclear war between India and Pakistan inevitable?
Yesterday evening Indian prime minister Narendra Modi authorised missile strikes on jihadi training camps located in Pakistan's East Punjab and Pakistani Kashmir. It is retaliation for the attack on Hindu tourists allegedly carried out by the Pakistani Jihadi groups Lashkar-e-Taibi and Jaish-e-Muhammad in Indian controlled Kashmir on 22 April. Does this mean all-out war between the two nuclear powers is inevitable? Not necessarily. Since Indian partition, the perennial casus belli in the subcontinent there have been three major wars between India and Pakistan. The First Indo-Pakistan War (1947-1948) and the Second Indo-Pakistan War (1965) were both fought over the Kashmir issue. The third Indo-Pakistan War of 1977 was fought over Bangladesh. The result of the conflict won by India enabled Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, to achieve independence. A fourth, the Kargil War, in 1999 is better characterised as a mini-war, which followed Islamist militant and regular army infiltration of high-altitude mountains in Indian-administered Kashmir.
