After the Pahalgam massacre of innocent tourists on April 22, 2025, the world witnessed India’s carefully calibrated response against terrorism which underlined the surety of punishment. Central to this fight against terrorism was strategic communication. Emotions were running high as people consumed the raw barbarity of the massacre inside the valley, which was – as usual – reflected and amplified through television news channels, Youtube and WhatsApp. There was a constant barrage of videos across screens of the mayhem unleashed by the terrorists on the basis of religious segregation. Stories of ‘Jaakar Modi ko batao’ (go and tell Modi) by a grieving wife went viral and the photograph of the shocked wife sitting beside her husband’s dead body lying in a pool of blood soon became the visual trope of emotions like shock, pain and trauma inflicted in the Baisaran valley.

Even as emotions became a genre and television studios packaged it to the hilt, Prime Minister Narendra Modi respond with a warning and a promise. The national and international community was enjoined in keeping up with the patience to witness the ‘unimaginable response to the perpetrators of terror and their sponsors’.

In the next few days, the political dispensation ensured an integrated strategic communication plan was put in place. The team kept a strict vigil that was marked by quick warnings to the media wherever required. The nefarious designs of the terrorists to precipitate a communal backlash in India were thwarted as people showed remarkable sensitivity and restraint. The government machinery sent constant advisories to media and the public to be careful of any disinformation.

On May 7, when India launched ‘Operation Sindoor’, the first official communication came in the form of a crisp and concise press note. The curtain raiser set the tone for more to come. Both the national and foreign media were scrambled to scour every little detail of the IAF’s precision strikes at terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and........

© News18