Areeba Mehmood Khan
THE South Asian region today is saturated in animosity, the atmosphere contaminated with abhorrence along with rival states and their nefarious attempts at demeaning the other. The transmuting architecture in the region is worrisome, as ever.
The Corona virus being the final flourish but not great a reason to hold back adversarial tendencies, hopes for the vaccine and its efficacy and absurd conspiracies aside, events in recent times have worsened the already triggering environment.
Pakistan is gripped in political crisis, impaired by covid-19, India’s habitual irksome meddling and tons of issues to grapple with at once, the country has been in the midst of intense indecisiveness and troubled decision making.
The coordinated network of deception and propaganda dissemination was exposed by a watchdog based in Brussels named as ‘EU DisinfoLab’.
This revelation showed how India was contributing vigorously to the grand tapestry of collective propaganda designs against Pakistan. Not only did the decaying Indian democracy use fake journalists and dead NGOs for their motives, that too, UN-accredited ones. The works carried out by these forums were mostly anti-Pakistan and a few pieces – anti China.
From India being caught red-handed to Pakistan keeping its eyes wide shut, much of the spectacle is discomforting and disappointing in both aspects.
The existing collective gullibility of the social media society that believes everything they read, already being a detrimental factor in every way possible, the propaganda against Islamabad should be reason enough to devise practical, hard core steps to tackle this hybrid warfare.
States like India, having an insatiable appetite with belittling rivals, are comical as their own façade fissures in the face of domestic affairs. As in the past India’s failure to embody and solve their issues, making them denser, forces them to resort to constant browbeating Pakistan.
The torrent of online hate and propaganda against Islamabad is not new. Delhi’s old self-righteous behaviour being the enemy to a mature settlement, too, has been the trouble. The bellicose nature of covertly played hybrid war and an absurd blame game is not different to Pakistan.
Even so, the onus to tackle and respond to such repeated and aggravated plots lays on the policy makers.
Something that deserves appreciation is Pakistan’s effort and the unveiling of the terror dossier against India in a press conference by Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi with the ISPR made not so long before the EU DisinfoLab reports.
The press conference revealed evidence as to the activities carried out by India sponsoring state terrorism and ‘fanning the flames’ of instability in the region.
It was even aptly claimed that further silence over the issue would serve as a ‘destabilizer’ for the region.
Nevertheless, what should have been an ostentatious, noisy, and thorough, excellently media covered investigation and trial-has been confined to a few figure headed, potentially average tweets. India is yet to be held accountable for its preposterous propaganda and exploitation.
Although Pakistan has urged the EU and UN for a probe, it seems to, not have been pursued properly as it should, knowing how India continues to revel finding and creating troubles for Pakistan in the region and beyond.
Pakistan has failed to dig into the issue despite the scathing disclosure by the EU DisinfoLab. Little or no substantive progress has been observed. This is an obvious failure to defend the country from hybrid warfare despite claiming to fight against it.
It might take us more than a dozen Goswami’s to realize the gravity of the situation and the inimical intensity of the propaganda being disseminated against us before we realize this should now be one of our priorities.
The EU’s report did grab little international attention, or else it would have been treated just like the ‘terror dossier’.
Taking this as a defeat of our cognoscenti’ capabilities and potential, at the very least the case should’ve been followed with great attentiveness and determination rather formally taken up as an issue at International Councils.
The International community on the other hand is quick to cop an attitude against small states and those who do not have the influence like that of themselves, yet here they seem apathetic. Where New Delhi now, should have been destined to be sanctioned, shamelessly seems adamant just like the global amphitheatre.
—The writer is internee at Institute of Strategic Studies and research analysis, NDU.
