Maryam Noor
In today’s age of digital media, disinformation and propaganda have become effective instruments for achieving ideological, military, and political goals. When it comes to Pakistan’s contemporary scenario of geopolitical tensions with India, there have been deliberate and targeted disinformation campaigns and propaganda. This insight is an attempt to highlight India's propaganda and disinformation campaigns against Pakistan through covert support from external entities to defame the country in the international community and explore options for Pakistan to counter such narratives effectively.
India's disinformation campaign, mainly through social media, poses a serious threat to Pakistan's political and social stability. However, despite these challenges, Pakistan has shown remarkable resilience in countering these narratives effectively. The intended propagation of false information has two purposes: first, it incites instability within Pakistan; second, it undermines Pakistan's reputation internationally, hurting its diplomatic and economic interests. Nevertheless, Pakistan's steadfastness in the face of such propaganda is a testament to its strength and determination.
India has persistently attempted to tarnish Pakistan's image across the world through disinformation and propaganda and consistently accusing Pakistan of allegedly supporting terrorism. India has been actively spreading false narratives to undermine Pakistan and the reputation of its armed forces by facilitating various separatist groups in Baluchistan. Reportedly, India backs Tehreek-e-Taliban-Pakistan (TTP), a terrorist group antagonistic to Pakistan. This is evident from India’s providing a digital platform to absconding TTP leader Ehsan Ullah Ehsan to propagate the anti-Pakistan narrative.
Another instance of India maligning Pakistan on the international stage is "Srivastava Group", which has its headquarters in New Delhi. It runs a website of fake news outlets, including "EP Today", a magazine claiming to be published by the European Parliament, Brussels. It promotes Indian interests and discredits Pakistan. Similarly, in May 2020, the advent of the "EU Chronicle" brought forth a slew of fake media outlets, prominent among them were "Times of Geneva" and "4 News Agency". The discernible lack of journalistic integrity, coupled with an apparent absence of transparency within the EU Chronicle's operations, suggests its function as a propaganda apparatus serving Indian objectives, primarily focused on disseminating misinformation against Pakistan.
In 2020, the EU DisinfoLab uncovered extensive evidence in their "Indian Chronicles" report, revealing the operation of over 750 counterfeit media outlets across 116 countries for 15 years. These outlets utilising dubious networks, such as Big News Network and the World News Network, were instrumental in propagating an anti-Pakistan narrative. The investigation traced the origins of these outlets' protocol addresses to New Delhi. Notable domains associated with this operation, including baluchistantoday.com, baluchday.com, JammuKashmir.eu, friendsofKashmir.eu, and foreignaffairs.times.com, were identified as originating from the Indian IP address 208.73.210.140. This IP address has been utilised to disseminate hate speech, propagate false information, and advance propaganda objectives.
India continues to use misinformation through social media, TV networks, and Intergovernmental Organizations (INGOs) as an instrument for political manipulation. During the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan rallies in Lahore in April 2021, controversial Twitter trends such as #CivilWarinPak and similar hashtags acquired considerable popularity. They remained significant regional trends for an extended period. Subsequent analysis revealed that 61% of all tweets containing these hashtags originated from Indian sources, underscoring the planning that went into these disinformation campaigns.
One of the major avenues for Indians to conspire against Pakistan is Bollywood. These productions are tailored to damage Pakistan's reputation abroad and tarnish its image in international organisations, particularly the UN.
Pakistan faces significant obstacles in effectively countering false information and managing its public image. The government has provided detailed information about India's deceptive political strategies to the international community. However, the UN Security Council and its members have yet to take any substantial action to address this issue. India's strong alliances with powerful countries and its strategic importance in the region also contribute to the lack of action against it.
On January 5th, 2021, Senator Rahman Malik moved a bill in a senate committee meeting asking the government to engage Interpol against Indian Chronicles. The Senate Committee passed the resolution, but there has yet to be a follow-up regarding this bill. However, there are some initiatives at the private level, such as the AFP fact-checking and the Soch initiative. The government recently proposed a draft to the national assembly to adopt the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) Amendment Bill 2023 to counter disinformation and misinformation.
On the other hand, there is also a need for public awareness about disinformation campaigns. The population is vulnerable to disinformation campaigns on social media platforms. Countering disinformation is quite a challenge, but this challenge can be managed by strengthening the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA)-2016 and creating a comprehensive National Information Operations Policy with public guidelines from the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA), Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), and Ministry of Information Technology.
To address disinformation campaigns on social media platforms, the government should develop Media Information Literacy (MIL) programmes that educate the public on the positive use of the internet and how to respond to disinformation. Initiatives at the government level are needed to designate those entities as “foreign agents” that are working on anti-state or anti-government agendas centred toward Pakistan. Think tanks, media, and universities must be guided to conduct international conferences, seminars, and webinars to raise awareness on an international level about the nefarious designs of India against Pakistan, especially targeting audiences of renowned global scholars and the Pakistani diaspora.
In conclusion, we as a nation must be educated enough to differentiate between truth and unjustified propaganda perpetuated through online spaces, especially when it comes to Pakistan's security and political dynamics.