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In the world of strategic constraints, economic bounds and geopolitical pressures, Modi needs reflection time and deflection mechanisms from high expectations caused by untrammeled propaganda.

Instead of a calm poise to permit decision-making in a fraught national situation, hate and revenge have been on autopilot since terrorists mowed down 26 tourists in the alpine meadow of Baisaran near Pahalgam in South Kashmir on the balmy afternoon of April 22. This is muddying waters for the regime, and for India.

Behind the war-mongering and anti-Muslim drum-beating is the Hindutva estate’s elaborately designed, carefully constructed, crude propaganda universe that has prospered in the time of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

Back in 2014, when Modi was about to launch himself as prime minister, his chef de mission, the ebullient plotter, Amit Shah – now the Union home minister – had boasted in an address to the BJP IT Cell (the lies factory) that their ecosystem had 32 lakh WhatsApp groups which could render anything believable in no time. Goebbelsian virtues at their finest.

The propaganda that ensues aims to establish Prime Minister Modi as a magical superhero, like the comic character Phantom, who can do what he likes and when he likes in his infinite bravery and resourcefulness, in order to perform daring magical acts to take the side home. But ‘over-propaganda’ can send the leader riding the tiger – and that’s not so magical because getting off is fraught with the obvious risk, the tiger being a carnivore.

In the world of strategic constraints, economic bounds and geopolitical pressures, the leader needs reflection time and deflection mechanisms from high expectations caused by the negative side-effects of untrammeled propaganda. Without filtration, titration, calibration, without tethers, what was meant to promote can damage the political hero-master.

This is what the blunt propaganda ecosystem is guilty of after the Pahalgam abomination. It has led the country to believe that a military assault to teach Pakistan a lesson is days – if not hours – away. 

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, whether in innocence or by design, also stepped on the stage, espousing his version of politico-military strategy, citing the higher call of “dharma” to fix evil-doers and giving us a 21st-century taste of the event when Lord Krishna guides Arjuna on the eve of battle – only here, it is Bhagwat whispering the mantra into Modi’s ears, but through a megaphone. 

Fortunately, the prime minister is not unaware of the real world. 

Cutting short his trip to Saudi Arabia on hearing of the gruesome attack on innocent tourists, which marked the worst such incident in the saga of Pakistan-inspired terrorist meddling in Kashmir, where civilians were targeted by religion, he rushed back and addressed a rally in poll-bound Bihar. 

He summoned anger and righteous indignation, and beckoned resolve, but weighed his words when he spoke a few sentences in English, clearly not wishing to test the Hindi of India’s foreign interlocutors. With deliberation he announced that those who carried out the attack, and their collaborators, would be “pursued to the ends of the earth” – meaning individuals and malign outfits will be singled out for punishment. He refrained from blaming any country by name.

This would have calmed nerves internationally. With Europe and West Asia already in the throes of war, world capitals needed assurance that a war was not about to break out between two nuclear-armed nations, initiated by India. Modi was signalling that under his responsible leadership, India would find other suitable means to take the perpetrators to justice.  

He did. He announced the keeping of the Indus Waters Treaty “in abeyance”. That sent his supporters and the television-studio warriors into a joyous frenzy but still wanting more. Commentators’ explanations that the river waters flowing to Pakistan couldn’t be stopped for many years as time was needed to divert the flow, has evidently dampened the drumbeaters’ spirits and led to their doubling down on seeking war.

Modi, now getting ensnared in the web devised under his own gaze, found a smart way out by announcing after meeting the military brass and his top gun ministers that the government had decided to give the military a “free hand” in dealing with the situation. 

 There were plaudits all-round, chuffing the story-spinners, although the armed forces always have a free hand in planning and there’s nothing new about it. With their plans ready, they seek political clearance from the government – but the PM and his senior colleagues spun it like now it was up to our forces to hit when the hour was right.

However, taking no chances, the resourceful home minister – a clever schemer and masterful manipulator of friendly souls that he is – reiterated the PM’s earlier message on May 1, nine days after evil struck at Baisaran, that under Modi’s leadership, the government would go to the ends of the earth to catch the evil-doers. This was another shot at deflection from the war mania being sought to be whipped up by the fraternal yarn-spinners and their much-vaunted WhatsApp groups.

Where are we headed?

The UN Security Council condemned terrorism and expressed sympathy for the victims but no country named Pakistan the way India may have hoped. In fact, thanks to China, no Pakistan-based terrorist outfit could be named, although The Resistance Front – seen by Indian intelligence and by the people of Kashmir over the years, as a proxy for the Pakistani Lashkar-e-Tayyaba – took credit for the Pahalgam attack but later retracted.

The US, the UK, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, with whom India has friendly interactions in a wide arc have said all the right things but counselled talking it over with Pakistan. That’s where matters stand on diplomacy. 

What about the military? If open war is ruled out, as is likely, will it be a straightforward missile hit, or dropping bombs by air like in Balakot, in the Pakistani mainland beyond POK, a territory India claims, after the 2019 Pulwama suicide attack? Will there be special forces action? Or, a variant of the two?

It’s hard to say but a note of caution is apt. In security circles and among a section of diplomatists, there has been a sense that in 2019, India raised the strategic threshold in dealing with Pakistan by sending in an aircraft with bombs – and that should now be deemed the new normal. 

This is recklessness on a roll. It is self-evident that the so-called higher threshold – which is in actuality a lower threshold of tolerance – has not produced any kind of deterrence as far as Pakistani terrorists go. 

Internationally, many have questioned if India even has a worked out nuclear doctrine, or only a shibboleth that passes for doctrine. Questions have been raised whether there is indeed even a general war-fighting doctrine, especially when it comes to an adversary like Pakistan which is known to be adept at using terrorists and mercenaries. 

Anand K. Sahay is a journalist and political commentator based in New Delhi.

This article was originally published on The Wire.
Views in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect CGS policy.