Tensions are running high in India and Pakistan as the two nuclear-armed countries face a situation close to war, after one of the worst clashes between them in more than two decades. India has blamed Pakistan for the April 22 attack in Kashmir that claimed the lives of 26 civilians, mostly Hindu tourists, but Islamabad has denied involvement, leading to a historic low point in relations. Key treaties have been suspended, visas revoked, airspace closed and diplomatic missions reduced in both countries.
After the attack, speculation was rife that India would pursue military action due to public pressure on the government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had set a precedent by launching “surgical strikes” and airstrikes on “terror launchpads” in Pakistan after terror attacks in 2016 and 2019 that, unlike the one this April, targeted only security forces.
During a recent election rally, Modi made a rare statement in English, saying, “India will identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backers. … We will pursue them to the ends of the Earth,” which was intended for an international audience and foreign governments.
Hence, earlier this week, when the Indian government announced nationwide civil defence drills, people suspected impending action. In the early hours of May 7, India launched missile strikes in Pakistan and the Pakistani side of Kashmir as part of “Operation Sindoor.” The vermilion powder that Hindu women wear on their forehead, “sindoor” is a symbol of matrimony, and the name seemed to be a tribute to the women who had been widowed during the Kashmir attack.
In a statement, India claimed it had hit “terrorist infrastructure” at nine sites in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Punjab province, from where, the statement claimed, “terrorist attacks against India had been planned and directed.” It added: “Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature. No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted. India has shown considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution.”
Pakistan called it “an act of war,” however, and said that India had struck six locations in those regions, resulting in at least 31 deaths. It accused India of targeting civilian areas and mosques and vowed to retaliate “at a time, place and manner of its choosing.” Its military spokesperson claimed that Pakistan’s air defenses had downed multiple Indian fighter jets, a claim disputed by India, although journalists published images of what appeared to be wreckage from at least one.
The Indian strikes were escalatory in nature since they targeted sites in Pakistan’s Punjab province, which is its most populous and the political center of the country. They included sites in the cities of Bahawalpur and Muridke. The latter is merely 20 miles from the major city of Lahore. In previous disputes sparked by the border territory, the two countries have tended to strike only inside Kashmir, in an effort to avoid escalating the situation.
Since The Resistance Front, a local Kashmiri group, had initially claimed responsibility for the attack, the Indian government said it was a proxy of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based Islamist militant organization, and held it — and, by extension, the Pakistani government — responsible. The Indian armed forces claimed that the targeted sites in Muridke were the training camps of the group. Bahawalpur, they said, hosted the headquarters of Jaish-e-Mohammed, which was behind the 2019 attack on Indian paramilitary forces in Kashmir. In a statement, the group said that 10 family members of its founder Masood Azhar, a U.N.-designated terrorist, had died in the recent strike.
The situation has led to significant military exchanges between the two countries, including artillery shelling and drone attacks along the border, leading to civilian deaths. Both governments have been releasing statements containing claims about the actions, and an information war is also unfolding with varying narratives and competing news briefings being amplified on social media. Both countries accuse the other of being the aggressor. India says the attack on tourists in Kashmir was the first level of escalation, while Pakistan says it was the missile strikes by India.
As blackouts were imposed in more than 15 Indian cities along the western and northern frontiers on the night of May 8 — part of a counter-offensive after Pakistani drones and missiles attempted to hit Indian military facilities — there was tension and anxiety in India. On May 7, however, when people in India woke up to the news of the missile strikes in Pakistan, there was euphoria. Many expressed national pride and praised the Indian government and armed forces for their actions across the border. “Justice is served,” the Indian army posted on X, announcing the operation.
The project was largely supported across India’s political spectrum as parties from the Indian National Congress to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) backed the government’s actions.
In the aftermath of the Kashmir attack, news anchors immersed themselves in hypernationalist warmongering. After the strikes, they broadcast nationalist slogans from their newsrooms. “Throughout 7 May, news channels studied visuals of the attack sites, dissected them, analysed them and finally came to the conclusion that ‘Justice is served,’” wrote Shailaja Bajpai, a veteran journalist and media watcher, in The Print, an online Indian news publication. “The anchors were the commanding officers urging India forward into battle,” she added, using the language of the Indian army.
Forceful headlines were seen on national TV channels, such as “25 Minutes 24 Missiles Rain Hell on Pakistan,” “Our Rafales Avenge Pahalgam, Bleed Terroristan” (a reference to the French fighter planes that India acquired recently) and “Paints the Ground Red in Pakistan.”
The Indian journalist Sushant Singh posted on X, “You can read any Indian newspaper today and it would be like reading all of them. Same sarkari [government] talking points, same points of coverage, same analysis and even the same opinion writers. Those looking for truly independent analysis and more objective reportage have nowhere to go.”
It has become the norm in Bollywood for actors to praise government actions, and it was not surprising to see prominent celebrities praise the operation and extend their support to the armed forces.
However, there was a brief controversy when it came to light that at least 15 filmmakers and studios had rushed to register the title “Operation Sindoor,” hoping to make films in the future. There has been a recent trend in Bollywood to make war films based on real-life events. The online outrage led to Jio Studios — owned by the Ambanis, one of the world’s richest families — withdrawing its application to trademark the code name for entertainment purposes.
On social media, there was a huge surge in expressions of nationalism among Indian users, who celebrated the strikes against Pakistan. Some of them repurposed the festive greeting of “Happy Diwali” and drew parallels between the celebratory fireworks of Diwali and the explosions resulting from the strikes. Such messages, hugely controversial, have become common during military tensions between the two countries and often lead to online arguments.
There is a small section of the Indian public that has been critical of this euphoria. However, in the current environment, there is little space for — and immense fear of — being critical of the government and its actions. There has been a crackdown on media, journalists and online users in the last couple of days. X said that the Indian government had asked it to block 8,000 accounts in the country.
While a hypernationalist response was expected in India, the missile strikes also invoked a very strong nationalistic response from the Pakistani public. It was rare and telling in a country where the public is often critical of the state, anti-military sentiment remains at an all-time high and the civilian government, led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, is currently extremely disliked while the country’s most popular leader, Imran Khan, remains in jail.
The outrage was intense because the targeted sites were in Punjab, a province that plays a central role in Pakistani politics. Moreover, some of the first reports of casualties included women and children.
A 7-year-old boy who died during the strikes, the son of a senior army officer, has become a symbol of recent events. His funeral on May 7 was organized by the military and attended by the top Pakistani leadership, including President Asif Ali Zardari, the prime minister, army chief and other senior ministers.
The anti-India mood has been prevalent in Pakistan because people believe India has accused its neighbor of orchestrating the attack in Kashmir without providing any evidence and while refusing to allow a neutral investigation. Hence, India’s actions have been criticized as unjustified aggression, and there is significant support for retaliation by the Pakistani military.
That the strikes were celebrated by the Indian public has added to these negative feelings. Several Pakistani celebrities, including Mahira Khan and Hania Amir, who enjoyed immense popularity in India, have since expressed their anger.
Meanwhile, Kashmiris on both sides of the border say that whenever there is a conflict between the nations, they bear the brunt of it. Many shared a scene from the 2014 Indian film “Haider,” which is set during the peak of the armed insurgency in the Kashmir Valley, to bring home the idea. In it, a police officer tells a young man, “When two elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled.”
In the aftermath of the Indian strikes, the Pakistani government lifted the ban on X that it had imposed a year ago. Apart from heated online exchanges between people from both countries, making social media an added frontier of the conflict, disinformation has also thickened the fog of war.
Some right-wing Indian accounts have asked people to engage in “information warfare” and amplify news that is damaging to Pakistan, regardless of accuracy. Fact-checkers say that many Pakistan-based X handles are pretending to be Indians, including military personnel, and their content is adding to the confusion among Indian users.
The barrage of unverified claims is being supported by videos of airstrikes in Gaza or clips of Iran’s strikes on Israel, along with old videos from India and Pakistan. Indian media outlets are also making unsubstantiated claims, such as that Delhi has damaged Pakistan’s main port in Karachi or captured its capital, Islamabad. Some channels went on to say that Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, may have been arrested, a claim that has no basis in fact.
While the international community has expressed deep concern over the escalating tensions and has called for restraint, diplomatic and security analysts say that the United States is likely best positioned to put an end to these hostilities, as it did in 2019.
Marco Rubio, America’s secretary of state, has been in touch with both countries, and President Donald Trump has said that he wants both countries to “work it out” and he will be there to “help.” However, in his latest interview, Vice President JD Vance said, “What we can do is try to encourage these folks to de-escalate a little bit, but we’re not going to get involved in the middle of war that’s fundamentally none of our business and has nothing to do with America’s ability to control it.”
His statement raised concerns as India and Pakistan entered day three of hostilities. What happens next is a question on everyone’s minds.
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