Brigadier Syed Mushtaq Ahmed (Retd) has extensive experience in areas of national security, intelligence and strategic issues. He has worked as a Senior Research Analyst in a strategic organisation and has a niche for writing research articles and analytical assessments, specializing in counterintelligence, counter-terrorism and nuclear security.

The fourth round between the two South Asian rivals can be described as the most intense and devastating air-land battle, which ended as fast as it started. The 72-hour, fast-paced, high-tech, and net-centric South Asian version of Star Wars, preceded by a two-week media-hypnotic psychological conditioning phase, brought to the fore some new lessons in modern-day warfare. This article focuses on the war between Pakistan and India, as well as their contrasting narratives.

While this piece is not intended to analyze the character and nature of an early-summer war, which is primarily a subject of military history and technology, it will, however, endeavour to dissect the ideological and perceptual divisions that precipitate animosity and conflict, defining the security construct of South Asia. The conflict, yet again, highlighted that the competing narratives are rooted in deep-seated, contending notions, where the fundamental truths of one side are viewed as illusory delusions by the other and vice versa. Objectivity in South Asian contests has always been the first casualty, and one has to, therefore, tread with caution to discern the right picture and reality.

While the media is awash with a blend of fact and fiction, often pushed by jingoistic anchors and pseudo-analysts, many of whom lack proper training or are driven by nationalist diktats and blind ideological zeal, this creates a compulsion to fuel hysteria in the name of competition. Truth, reality, and morality become casualties. But then, who cares? As the adage goes, everything is fair in love and war. So be it—damn the objectivity.

I have therefore tried to glean the contending narratives not from the respective country-stated positions or the bigoted media analysts but from the competing discourse of leading intellectuals from either side. Among the leading names of respect, I shortlisted eminent thinkers and writers such as Shashi Tharoor, Pravin Sawhney, Karan Thapar, Najam Sethi, Rauf Hasan, and Maleeha Lodhi, among others, to try and discern reason from rancour and rigidity.

The Indian narrative cannot be better outlined than by one of its most admired, eloquent, and soft-spoken literati, Mr. Shashi Tharoor—the Congress leader and Chairperson of the Standing Committee on External Affairs. His filibustering before and after Operation Sindoor (Indian military action post Pahalgam Attack) truly exemplifies the minds of Indian sane intelligentsia, which, too, have either swayed with the hyper-jingoistic hysterical tide or have largely played to the galleries.

The summary of Shashi’s dialogue with Karan Thapar on The Wire and Tom Burges Watson on Global News Today (GNT) pretty much sums up the Indian thought process. Deluded with nationalist spirit, Thapar, like many of his literati pals, at the very outset, loses rationality, sanity, and objectivity when he castigates Pakistan scornfully to frame and get Pakistan accredited as a state sponsor of terrorism.

He is not alone in this – media icons like Christiane Fair, Piers Morgan, Dr Sajjan Gohel, et al. echo more or less the same mantra. The strands of the Indian narrative are summarized hereunder: “Pakistan is a revisionist and a bigoted power which uses terror as a tool to internationalize the Kashmir dispute. A terrorist providing state vs. India a terrorist victim state. India, a status quo power wants nothing, that Pakistan has reacted in self defence to terrorist outrage in a calibrated manner targeting only known terrorist bases/HQs, avoiding civilians and military targets – have shown restraint and not escalated. Pakistan chose to overreact on LOC, India responded in kind. India was not escalating, merely reacting. Pakistan is a master of denial, adept at nuclear blackmail and resorts to asymmetric means to achieve its objectives. General Asim played Tango (War) due to institutional necessity to shore up its internal legitimacy and reshape internal and external narratives in Pakistan’s favour. Effort of re-hyphenation of India-Pakistan is a nonstarter as the two have no parallels.”

Dr Christine Fair (Professor of Security Studies, George Town University), in her talk with Karan Thapar, was not behind in chastising Pakistan when she referred to the prescription in her book to PM Modi’s rhetoric that Pakistan’s behaviour will not change, until it bears considerable consequences to its behaviour and that Pakistan’s Army is closer to insurgent organizations. Like India perceives that behind every terrorist attack, there is Pakistan, this........

© Paradigm Shift