From surgical strikes to strategic messaging
India has already demonstrated it can reach beyond the LoC with surgical finality when provoked.
However, kinetic force need not be the only national strategy against Pakistan’s terrorism.
We can also have a parallel civilian strategy, an offbeat suggestion.
The Indian government can speak directly to the citizens of Pakistan.
In fact, even the PM himself can do it.
The distinction of intent
The cornerstone of this doctrine is a clear, consistent message:
- India has no quarrel with the Pakistani people.
We can utilize global and social media as instruments of public diplomacy to convey India’s intentions as ‘Not Anti-Pakistan’, but towards long-term stability of Indo-Pak relations.
By expressing genuine goodwill toward the common citizen, we peel away Pakistan’s ‘Existential Threat’ narrative, the very oxygen that sections of the Pakistani military establishment and ISI rely upon to justify their lopsided military share of the national budget.
We can clarify the Indian government as a reluctant actor, forced into retaliation by a rogue military elite that prioritizes proxy terror over its own people’s roti and dhal.
The tragedy of forced retaliation
A critical nuance in this strategy is the factual framing of the Indian Military response.
We can communicate that when the Pakistani establishment chooses the path of the proxy, over and over again, India’s increasingly strong retaliation becomes inevitable.
This need not be communicated as a threat, but in a matter-of-fact tone.
The sentiment India conveys could be along the following lines:
- “Your political and military leaders have chosen a path that forces a response. While we wish prosperity to Pakistani citizens, we cannot stand by while your establishment burns our house. If your lives are disrupted by the fallout of these escalations, the responsibility lies with those who invited the storm, not India, which is forced to defend itself. India cannot help the consequences of your establishment’s choices.”
The mirror of two destinies
To make this message more powerful, India can highlight the comparison of governance outcomes:
- The divergence between the two nations is no longer just political; it is developmental.
- While India’s model is built on civilian-led growth, resulting in a 7.4% GDP expansion and a position as the world’s 4th largest economy with stable 2% inflation, the Pakistani model remains trapped in military-led terrorism.
- This has resulted in a stagnant Pakistani economy with growth struggling to stay above 2%, while the average citizen is crushed under hyper-inflation often exceeding 15%.
- While India invests in a $500 billion tech and AI ecosystem, the Pakistani establishment continues to hike military spending by double digits, even amidst a debt crisis.
- And Pakistan has built false narratives within its home about itself and India, portrayed India as a villain, and Pakistan as being successful against India in all its conflicts, including Operation Sindoor.
- Pakistani people have gained nothing in military or economic terms in the process.
From India’s standpoint, it has not initiated military conflict with Pakistan without provocation, nor sought to create instability within it, but has always given back to Pakistan more strongly than it got through the cowardly acts of Pakistani terrorism.
The question India can pose to Pakistani youth is simple:
- Why is your life not improving while Indians’ lives are on the rise?
Counter-terrorism via ‘inconvenient truths’
This strategy can serve as a potent form of non-kinetic counter-terrorism.
By explaining India’s growth metrics and messages of goodwill through open media ecosystems, India can undertake a ‘narrative counter’ to Pakistani extremist propaganda.
In today’s interconnected digital environment, such messaging will be difficult for Pakistan to fully censor. The word will get around to the Pakistani common people, sooner or later.
When a potential terror recruit is told India is an ‘existential threat’, but simultaneously sees India’s leadership wishing prosperity for Pakistani citizens, the recruitment pitch weakens.
We can fight terrorism not only with bullets, but even with people’s envy; we can also challenge the idea of the enemy with the reality of the comparative development of India vis-à-vis Pakistan.
It becomes a passive reputational countermeasure: demonstrating that stability and growth diminish the appeal of perpetual conflict.
Isolating the establishment
This doctrine aims to create a psychological dissonance in the minds of the Pakistanis.
The goal is to try to foster an internal democratic realization: that the security threat from India is amplified to sustain military primacy, amidst economic hardship in Pakistan.
Public discourse within Pakistan itself has frequently raised questions about elite privilege and governance imbalances, but that needs to be sustained based on facts.
Conclusion: A war of reputation
History is not necessarily written only on battlefields, but even in public consciousness.
By maintaining a posture of empathy toward the people and calibrated firmness toward the Pakistani establishment, India can steadily try to win the reputational and narrational war.
We can make it clear that the door to a ‘Prosperous South Asia’ is open, but the keys are presently held by the Pakistani military elite, unwilling to unlock it.
The day Pakistani citizens broadly conclude that perpetual proxy conflict harms their own future will be the day the cycle of terrorism will begin to lose its social sanction.
In case they fail to realize ever, at least we would have tried.
We won’t lose much by making this effort. We will at least earn the global goodwill.
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
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