When an incident happened anywhere in the world the prime responsibility of the state, government, and its law and enforcement agencies is to find out the root cause of the incident. But in India, things are the opposite of it. Because whenever, wherever, and what happened in India, the first word on the lips of Indians, its government, intelligence agencies and media is Pakistan involvement. Even if a little cracker explodes there, they blame Pakistan and their mouther piece of media lead from the front. Even some media outlet and their top brass knew in advance what will happen. It shows there is dirty nexus between the Indian government and its media.
On February 14th, 2019 a suicide attack on an Indian military convoy in Pulwama, at the Jammu-Srinagar highway killed 40, personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). The responsibility for the attack had claimed by the banned terror outfit Jaish-Muhammad (JeM). The Pulwama attack energized PM Modi to blame directly on Pakistan. India suspended Pakistan’s status of Most Favorite Nation (MFN) and hiked customs duty on imports by 200%. After that tension heightened between the two nuclear arm neighbors. India sends thousands of its more troops into the Kashmir Valley. BJP supporters launched a social media campaign attacking Pakistan and calling Modi a tiger. For many Indians, humiliating Pakistan is more important than winning a war.
In response to Indian accusations, PM Imran Khan Denied any involvement of Pakistan in the Pulwama terror attack and vowed to take action against the culprits, if India provide proof. Pakistan also assured that any misadventure against Pakistan will be given a befitting reply.
The Pulwama attack further led to Indian Air Force strikes in the Pakistani area of Balakot near the Line of Control (LoC) which the Indian government claimed to kill the terrorists but did not provide any official figure of killing. On the other hand, Indian media had claimed the killing of 300 terrorists at Balakota and called it a big win for the Indian forces without taking any official statement. Meanwhile, international media had witnessed only fallen trees nothing else there. It was just one example of the confusion that spread through misinformation based on false media reports. The next day Indian fighter jets again violated the Pakistani air space where its Mig-21 fighter jet was shot down by Pakistani Air Force and its pilot Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was captured by Pakistani forces. Later he was handed over to India on goodwill gesture and to defuse the tension.
Whenever elections happened in India Modi tried to do something new to get a huge benefit from it. In election campaigns, Modi-led BJP made public rhetoric to sell Pulwama and Balakot in the whole of elections. PM Modi tried to get a vote in the name of Balakot and Pulwama victims. The poor performance of BJP in the first term compelled Modi to do something adventurous to retain power and become a champion. Modi-led BJP government was the direct beneficiary of the Pulwama attack because it secured a landslide victory in the Lok Sabha elections.
The most important feature of provocation after Pulwama was the media stir. There was hardly any story that had independently verified, or considered necessary to counter check. Everything was served under the ambition of the Modi government. It was believed that many media outlets and reporters were contradictory, biased over the Pulwama attack. Even Indian Republic TV’s co-owner and host, Arnab Goswami knew in advance, New Delhi’s plan to attack Balakot, Pakistan. No serious questions had pointed towards the big intelligence failure over the Pulwama attack. There were serious concerns that why PM Modi did not address the nation after the Pulwama attack, and why only the Foreign Secretary and External Affairs spokesperson briefed the media without taking any question. Which is itself a question mark.
After the Pulwama and Balakot incident, Indian media played an unprofessional, irresponsible, negative, and aggressive role, which took two nuclear arms states to the brink of war. The negative role of Indian media has also been highlighted by the international media. During that time the core issues of Indian government failure and the Rafale deal scam were suddenly put on the side and the only narrative was Pulwama and Balakot. The role of Indian media after Pulwama left serious reservations whether Indian media had engaged in journalism or engaged in the propagation of Hindu nationalist ideology.
State-led misinformation campaigns are a new phenomenon in the modern world. India spread millions of fake news against Pakistan which was exposed by the EU DisinfoLab. It uncovered the dirty face of the Indian government’s over-organized network of fake Indian news to influenced global opinion against Pakistan and in favor of India. According to Mikel Kugelman, Fake news has become a new front in the India-Pakistan rivalry.
No doubt Modi’s anti-Pakistan rhetoric made him strong enough to tighten its grip on power, but the questions remained there. Now anti-Modi voices are getting stronger in India. There are still some factions who believe that Modi is exaggerating things to divert attention.
Now its been three years since the Pulwama attack but no evidence was provided to Pakistan by India, except blaming and defaming Pakistan. It is believed that the Pulwama attack was a state-sponsored and organized plan under the supervision of PM Modi. Indian Congress Leader Udit Raj has also claimed that “power-hungry” Narendra Modi had planned the Pulwama terror attack. For Modi and Amit Shah, only elections and self-interests matter but for the national peace and stability matter, because they knew that any miss-adventure or miscalculation by the Modi government will be disastrous for the entire region.
