When India launched Operation Sindoor and Pakistan replied with Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos, the world braced for escalation. Analysts held their breath. Twitter exploded. The Line of Management – that jagged scar between two unfinished imaginations of nationhood – lit up once more.
However should you suppose what occurred earlier this month was merely a army trade, you’ve missed the true story.
This was a conflict, sure, however not simply of missiles. It was a conflict of narratives, orchestrated in headlines, hashtags, and nightly newsrooms. The battlefield was the media. The ammunition was discourse. And the casualties have been nuance, complexity, and reality.
What we witnessed was the fruits of what students name discursive warfare — the deliberate development of id, legitimacy, and energy by means of language. Within the fingers of Indian and Pakistani media, each act of violence was scripted, each picture curated, each casualty politicised. This wasn’t protection. It was choreography.
Scene one: The righteous strike
On Could 6, India struck first. Or, as Indian media framed it, India defended first.
Operation Sindoor was introduced with theatrical pomp. Twenty-four strikes in twenty-five minutes. 9 “terror hubs” destroyed. Zero civilian casualties. The villains — Jaish-e-Muhammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba, “terror factories” throughout Bahawalpur and Muzaffarabad in Pakistan – have been mentioned to be diminished to mud.
The headlines have been triumphalist: “Surgical Strikes 2.0”, “The Roar of Indian Forces Reaches Rawalpindi”, “Justice Delivered”. Authorities spokespeople referred to as it a “proportionate response” to the Pahalgam bloodbath that had left 26 Indian vacationers useless. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh declared: “They attacked India’s brow, we wounded their chest”. Cinematic? Completely. Deliberate? Much more so.
Indian media constructed a nationwide id of ethical energy: a state pressured into motion, responding not with rage however with restraint, armed not simply with BrahMos missiles however with dharma – righteous responsibility and ethical order. The enemy wasn’t Pakistan, the narrative insisted — it was terror. And who may object to that?
That is the genius of framing. Constructivist idea tells us that states act primarily based on identities, not simply pursuits. And id is cast by means of language. In India’s case, the media crafted a narrative the place army may was tethered to ethical readability. The strikes weren’t aggression — they have been catharsis. They weren’t conflict — they have been remedy.
However right here’s the factor: remedy for whom?
Scene two: The sacred defence
Three days later, Pakistan struck again. Operation Bunyan Marsoos — Arabic for “iron wall” — was declared. The title alone tells you all the pieces. This wasn’t only a retaliatory strike; it was a theological assertion, a nationwide sermon. The enemy had dared to trespass. The response could be divine.
Pakistani missiles reportedly rained down on Indian army websites: brigade headquarters, an S-400 system, and army installations in Punjab and Jammu. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif proclaimed that Pakistan had “avenged the 1971 conflict”, by which it had capitulated and allowed Bangladesh to secede. That’s not battlefield technique. That’s myth-making.
The media in Pakistan amplified this narrative with patriotic zeal. Indian strikes have been framed as conflict crimes, mosques hit, civilians killed. Pictures of rubble and blood have been paired with captions about martyrdom. The response, against this, was exact, ethical, and inevitable.
Pakistan’s nationwide id, as constructed on this second, was considered one of righteous victimhood: we’re peaceable, however provoked; restrained, however resolute. We don’t search conflict, however we don’t concern it both.
The symmetry is uncanny. Each states noticed themselves as defenders, by no means aggressors. Each claimed ethical superiority. Each insisted the enemy fired first. Each mentioned they’d no selection.
Establishing the enemy and the sufferer
The symmetry was additionally obvious within the constructed picture of the enemy and the delcared victims.
India portrayed Pakistan as a terror manufacturing facility: duplicitous, rogue, a nuclear-armed spoiler hooked on jihad. Pakistani id was diminished to its worst stereotype, misleading and harmful. Peace, on this worldview, is unimaginable as a result of the Different is irrational.
Pakistan, in flip, solid India as a fascist state: led by a majoritarian regime, obsessive about humiliation, wanting to erase Muslims from historical past. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the aggressor. India was the occupier. Their strikes have been framed not as counterterrorism however as non secular conflict.
In every case, the enemy wasn’t only a risk. The enemy was an concept — and an concept can’t be reasoned with.
That is the hazard of media-driven id development. As soon as the Different turns into a caricature, dialogue dies. Diplomacy turns into weak point. Compromise turns into betrayal. And conflict turns into not simply potential, however fascinating.
The picture of the Different additionally decided who was thought of a sufferer and who was not.
Whereas missiles flew, folks died. Civilians in Kashmir, on either side, have been killed. Border villages have been shelled. Spiritual websites broken. Harmless folks displaced. However these tales, the human tales, have been buried beneath the rubble of rhetoric.
In each nations, the media didn’t mourn equally. Victims have been grieved in the event that they have been ours. Theirs? Collateral. Or fabricated. Or forgotten.
This selective mourning is an ethical indictment. As a result of after we solely care about our useless, we turn into numb to justice. And in that numbness, violence turns into simpler the subsequent time.
The battle for legitimacy
What was at stake through the India-Pakistan confrontation wasn’t simply territory or tactical benefit. It was legitimacy. Each states wanted to persuade their very own residents, and the world, that they have been on the suitable facet of historical past.
Indian media leaned on the worldwide “conflict on terror” body. By concentrating on Pakistan-based militants, India positioned itself as a companion in international safety. Sound acquainted? It ought to. It’s the identical playbook utilized by the US in Iraq and Israel in Gaza. Language like “surgical”, “precision”, and “pre-emptive” doesn’t simply describe, it absolves.
In the meantime, Pakistan’s media leaned on the ethical weight of sovereignty. India’s strikes have been framed as an assault not simply on land, however on izzat, honour. By invoking sacred areas, by publicising civilian casualties, Pakistan constructed India not as a counterterrorist actor however as a bully and a blasphemer.
This discursive tug-of-war prolonged even to details. When India claimed to have killed 80 militants, Pakistan referred to as it fiction. When Pakistan claimed to have shot down Indian jets, India referred to as it propaganda. Every accused the opposite of misinformation. Every media ecosystem grew to become a corridor of mirrors, reflecting solely what it wished to see.
Ceasefire, silence and a name to hear in another way
The weapons fell silent on Could 13, because of a US-brokered ceasefire. Each governments claimed victory. Media shops moved on. Cricket resumed. Hashtags light.
However what lingers is the story either side now tells about itself: We have been proper. They have been incorrect. We confirmed power. They backed down.
That is the story that may form textbooks, elections, army budgets. It’s going to inform the subsequent standoff, the subsequent skirmish, the subsequent conflict.
And till the story modifications, nothing will. And it will probably change.
Narratives constructed on competing truths, cast in newsrooms and battlefields, carried out in rallies and funerals, should not everlasting.
Simply as they have been constructed, they are often deconstructed. And that may occur provided that we begin listening to not the loudest voice, however to the one we’ve discovered to disregard.
So the subsequent time conflict drums beat, ask not simply who fired first, however who spoke final. And ask what story that speech was making an attempt to inform.
As a result of in South Asia, probably the most harmful weapon isn’t nuclear.
It’s narrative.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
