Recently, India has witnessed a glimpse of Hybrid warfare which will be the case of future wars. The reason is the difference in the development of both countries. Pakistan cannot afford or win a conventional war, while at the same time India as an open society is vulnerable to psyops. However, it has provided a wonderful opportunity to explore the effect of societal impact, its challenges, and lessons learnt for full scale war. Here, it is worth mentioning that if Pakistan can exploit these vulnerabilities so easily, China can be serious threat.
Hybrid Warfare includes conventional weapons, irregular tactics, terrorism, unconventional means such as disruptive social behaviors, drugs, counter insurgency etc. In the conflict with Pakistan, India has been exposed to every counts of hybrid warfare. Pakistan used their 24 aircrafts for targeting Indian military facilities and befitting response was given by Indian military responses. Eventually, the attack was foiled. Simultaneously, the terrorist activities loomed over India and the army was continuously fighting it. Now, Pakistan tried to target the social quotient through cyber means especially through social platforms. In addition, there was continuous challenges on Kashmir front.
Now, the analysts have given the in-depth analysis of conventional war, terrorism, and irregular tactics. However, the unconventional means has yet to be explored. The data gathered by one gentleman on twitter (Sorry, I tried to trace him back but could not find his analysis) suggests that the some of the hastags were coming in the full speed from Pakistan. The data suggested that the hashtag “SayNoToModi” had 58% origin from Pakistan. It simply suggests that such hashtags will exert additional pressure to the government and disrupt the social harmony. Not to mention that some of the panelist who continuously appear on TV debates got caught in that narrative. For example, Congress leaning person named Sumant Raman as shown in Figure below.
However, I believe that it might not be his fault. It only suggests that a thorough research needs to be conducted to investigate the use of social platforms in context of hybrid warfare and countermeasures need to be established. In the Aftermath of the recent situation, it has only divided the society and both sides are guilty of that (me too). The more I think the more I realize that the political parties will try to get benefit of such divisiveness on the social platforms. I strongly believe that it is okay from election processes, but not right in the critical situations. However, the society needs to look at this situation more comprehensively and everyone needs to introspect.
I might be on the right side of the spectrum this time, but it is quite possible that I may on the wrong side of the spectrum next time. So, everyone needs to introspect and choose the social righteousness. As rightly said by Dr. Kalam in European Union Speech “Where there is righteousness in the heart, there is beauty in the character. When there is beauty in the character, there is harmony in the home.
When there is harmony in the home, there is order in the nation. When there is order in the nation, there is peace in the world.” However, the speech was in context of world peace, but I would like to slightly digress from it and relate with the order in the nation with testing times. It will bring more structured response from the country in case of future warfare and conflicts. With this it will not wrong to conclude that the responsibility of every citizen increases manifolds.
