Pakistan is a victim of hybrid warfare. Propaganda and fake news is all around, which keeps on impacting not only its security concerns but also its image at the diplomatic level. India’s thrust to malign Pakistan is no secret, and there are spontaneous and considerate attempts on its part to disseminate false news in a crude attempt to play to the gallery. Events in IIOJK are propagated in a way that casts aspersions on the alleged role of Pakistan, and everything that goes odd is linked up to Islamabad. This is all owing to pestering hostility in the political realms, and the tools of warfare are the media.
If a catalogued profile is conducted as to how New Delhi has tried to frame Islamabad, then it is quite likely that Gobbles will feel ashamed. A report of European Union, EU DisinfoLab, recently came up with revelations, saying that hundreds of fake social media accounts, dead intellectuals and pseudo think tanks were re-incarnated to malign Pakistan, and the stuff of negativity revolved around Kashmiris struggle for self-determination. Likewise, be it the Pulwama attack or the Abhinandan episode, the litmus of originality was concealed and fake news was released to hoodwink global public opinion. The prime victim of this strategy has been peace prospects between the two states as the constituency of doves stood marginalised.
The struggle in Kashmir is a reality that cannot be undermined through media blogging. Moreover, there is much more that what India is trying to hide these days, as it is simmering with communal unrest, and sections of its society are in a parochial mindset. The Hindutva agenda of the extremist RSS, under state patronage, has literally torn to pieces its erstwhile essence of secularism. Even the egalitarian sections of society are concerned and a wave of state-sponsored terrorism from intellectual to physical assault is the order of the day. This is the reason why India is trigger happy with social media falsification and believes that it can fool all, and all the time. The onus is on the civil society of India as well as the international community to dig deeper into the fissures behind this hybrid venture, and call a spade a spade.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 26th, 2022.
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